ABSOLUTE FRAMES OF SPATIAL REFERENCE IN AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES

Cover Page

Cite item

Full Text

Abstract

This paper provides a brief survey on various absolute frames of spatial reference that can be observed in a number of Austronesian languages - with an emphasis on languages of the Oceanic subgroup. It is based on research of conceptions of space and systems of spatial reference that was initiated by the “space project” of the Cognitive Anthropology Research Group (now the Department of Language and Cognition) at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and by my anthology “Referring to Space” (Senft 1997a; see Keller 2002: 250). The examples illustrating these different absolute frames of spatial refer-ence reveal once more that earlier generalizations within the domain of “SPACE” were strongly biased by research on Indo-European languages; they also reveal how complex some of these absolute frames of spatial reference found in these languages are. The paper ends with a summary of Wegener’s (2002) pre-liminary typology of these absolute frames of spatial reference.

About the authors

Gunter Senft

Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics

Email: Gunter.Senft@mpi.nl
Gunter Senft is senior investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen (The Netherlands) and extraordinary professor of general linguistics at the University of Cologne (Germany). He has been studying the language and the culture of the Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea since 1982 and conducted field research on the Trobriand Islands for 45 months during 16 long- and short term field-trips between 1982 and 2012.; Website: http://www.mpi.nl/people/senft-gunter Publications: http://www.mpi.nl/people/senft-gunter/ publications; Вебсайт: http://www.mpi.nl/people/senft-gunter; Публикации: http://www.mpi.nl/people/senft-gunter/publications PB 310 NL-6500 AH Nijmegen The Netherlands

References

  1. Adelaar, K. A. (1997) An Exploration of Directional Systems in West Indonesia and Madagascar. In Gunter Senft (Ed.), Referring to Space. Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages, 53-81. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  2. Bennardo, G. (Ed.), (2002) Representing Space in Oceania - Culture in Language and Mind. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  3. Bowden, J. (1997) The meanings of directionals in Taba. In Gunter Senft (Ed.), Referring to Space. Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages, 251-268. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  4. Brown, P. and Levinson, S. C. (1993) “Uphill” and “downhill” in Tzeltal. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 3: 46-74.
  5. Cablitz, G. H. (2002) The acquisition of an absolute system: learning to talk about SPACE in Marquesan. In Eve Clark (Ed.), The Proceedings of the 31st Stanford Child Language Research Forum: Space in Language-Location, Motion, Path, and Manner. 40-49. http://csli-publications.stanford.edu/CLRF/2002/CLRF-2002-title.shtml.
  6. Cablitz, G. H. (2006) Marquesan - a Grammar of Space. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  7. Chambers, M. R. (2009) Which way is up? Motion verbs and paths of motion in Kubokota, an Austronesian language of the Solomon Islands. PhD thesis. London: Endangered Languages Academic Programme, School of Oriental and African Studies.
  8. Clayre, In. (1973) Notes on spatial deixis in Melanau. Anthropological Linguistics 15: 71-86.
  9. Francois, A. (2003) Of men, hills, and winds: Space directionals in Mwotlap. Oceanic Linguistics 42: 407-437.
  10. Francois, A. (2010) A comparison of geocentric directionals across Banks and Torres languages. Talk presented at the 8th International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics, COOL 8, University of Auckland, 4-9 January 2010.
  11. Haviland, J. B. (1993) Anchoring, iconicity and orientation in Guugu Yimithirr pointing gestures. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 3: 3-45.
  12. Haviland, J. B. (1998) Guugu Yimithirr cardinal directions. Ethos 26: 7-24.
  13. Hill, D. (1997) Finding your way in Longgu: geographical reference in a Solomon Island language. In Gunter Senft (Ed.), Referring to Space. Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages, 101-126. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  14. Hoem, I. (1993) Space and morality in Tokelau. Pragmatics 3: 137-153.
  15. Kant, I. (1768 [=1968]) Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume. Kants Werke. Akademie Textausgabe. Band II. Vorkritische Schriften II, 1757-1777, 377-383. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
  16. Keesing, R. M. (1997) Constructing Space in Kwaio (Solomon Islands). In Gunter Senft (Ed.), Referring to Space. Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages, 127-141. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  17. Keller, J. D. (2002) Spatial representation of island worlds. In Giovanni Bennardo (Ed.), Representing Space in Oceania, 249-260. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  18. Levinson, S. C. (2003) Space in Language and Cognition. Explorations in Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  19. Levinson, S. C. and Gunter Senft. (1991) Research Group for Cognitive Anthropology - A new research group of the Max Planck Society. Cognitive Linguistics 2: 311-312.
  20. Levinson, S. C. and David Wilkins (Eds.), (2006) Grammars of Space. Explorations in Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  21. Lichtenberk, F. (1983) A Grammar of Manam. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
  22. McKenzie, R. (1997) Downstream to here: Geographically determined spatial deictics in Aralle-Tabulahan. In Gunter Senft (Ed.), Referring to Space. Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages, 221-249. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  23. Miller, G. A. and Johnson-Laird, Ph. N. (1976) Language and Perception. Cambridge: Belknap Press. Mosel, U. (1982) Local deixis in Tolai. In Jürgen Weissenborn and Wolfgang Klein (Eds.), Here and There. Cross-Linguistic Studies on Deixis and Demonstration. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  24. Ozanne-Rivierre, F. (1997) Spatial References in New Caledonian Languages. In Gunter Senft (Ed.), Referring to Space: Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages, 83-100 Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  25. Palmer, B. (2002) Absolute spatial reference and the grammaticalisation of perceptually salient phenomena. In Giovanni Bennardo (Ed.), Representing Space in Oceania - Culture in Language and Mind. 107-157. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  26. Palmer, B. (2007) Pointing at the lagoon: Directional terms in Oceanic atoll-based languages. In Jeff Siegel, John Lynch and Diana Eades (Eds.), Language Description, History and Development. Linguistic Indulgence in Memory of Terry Crowley, 101-117. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
  27. Palmer, Bill. (2010) Route description tasks and spatial terminology in Kiribati. Talk presented at the 8th International Conference on Oceanic Linguistics, COOL 8, University of Auckland, 4-9 January 2010.
  28. Pederson, E., Danziger, E., Wilkins, D. Levinson, S., Sotaro Kita, and Senft. G. (1998) Semantic typology and spatial conceptualization. Language 74: 557-589.
  29. Senft, G. (1994) Ein Vorschlag, wie man standardisiert Daten zum Thema „Sprache, Kognition und Konzepte des Raumes“ in verschiedenen Kulturen erheben kann. Linguistische Berichte 154: 413-429.
  30. Senft, G. (1995) Sprache, Kognition und Konzepte des Raums in verschiedenen Kulturen. Kognitionswissenschaft 4: 166-170.
  31. Senft, G. (Ed.). (1997a) Referring to Space: Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  32. Senft, G. (1997b) Introduction. In Gunter Senft (Ed.), Referring to Space: Studies in Austronesian and Papuan Languages , 1-38. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  33. Senft, G. (2001) Frames of spatial reference in Kilivila. Studies in Language 25: 521-555.
  34. Senft, G. (2003) Review of “Representing space in Oceania - Culture in language and mind” edited by Giovanni Bennardo. Journal of the Polynesian Society 112: 169-171.
  35. Senft, G. (2004) Aspects of spatial deixis in Kilivila. In Gunter Senft (Ed.), Deixis and Demonstratives in Oceanic Languages, 59-80. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
  36. Senft, G. (2006) Prolegomena to a Kilivila grammar of space. In Stephen C. Levinson and David P. Wilkins (Eds.), Grammars of Space: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity, 206-229. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  37. Senft, G. (2007) The Nijmegen space games: Studying the interrelationship between language, culture and cognition. In Jürg Wassmann and Katharina Stockhaus (Eds.), Person, Space and Memory in the Contemporary Pacific: Experiencing New Worlds, 224-244. New York: Berghahn Books.
  38. Senft, G. (2008) Landscape terms and place names in the Trobriand Islands - The Kaile'una subset. Language Sciences 30(2/3): 340-361.
  39. Senft, G. (2014) Understanding Pragmatics. London: Routledge.
  40. Terrill, A. and Burenhult, N. (2008) Orientation as a strategy of spatial reference. Studies in Language 32: 93-136.
  41. Talmy, L. (1978) “Figure and Ground in Complex Sentences”. In Greenberg, Joseph H. (Ed.), Universals of Human Language, Vol. iv: Syntax, 625-649. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  42. Van Cleve, James and Robert E. Frederick. (1991) The Philosophy of Right and Left. Incongruent Counterparts and the Nature of Space. Dordrecht: Kluwer, Wassmann, J. and Dasen, P. R. (1998) Balinese spatial orientation: some empirical evidence of moderate linguistic relativity. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Incorporating Man) 4: 689-711.
  43. Wegener, C. (2002) Absolute Referenzrahmen zum Raumverweis - Eine vorläufige Typologie absoluter Systeme. Magisterarbeit betreut von Gunter Senft und Dieter Metzing. Universität Bielefeld: Fakultät für Linguistik und Literaturwissenschaft.
  44. Wilkins, D. P. (1989) Mparntwe Arrernte (Aranda): Studies in the Structure and Semantics of Grammar. PhD Dissertation. Canberra: Australian National University.

Copyright (c) 2017 Senft G.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

This website uses cookies

You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website.

About Cookies