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Article published In: Variation in the Pacific: Part I
Edited by Eri Kashima and Miriam Meyerhoff
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 6:2] 2020
► pp. 250–277

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Word-initial [h]-drop variation in Nmbo

Change-in-progress in an egalitarian multilingual speech community of Papua New Guinea

 | Australian National University | University of Helsinki
Published online: 18 December 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.20002.kas
Abstract
This paper presents a natural speech corpus-based study of word-initial [h]-drop from the Nmbo speech community of southern Papua New Guinea. It is a speech community within a traditional egalitarian multilingual language ecology sustained by a practice of virilocal exogamy, and there is strong intergenerational transmission of local vernacular languages. This study investigates the propensity of word-initial [h]-drop in nouns, based on Nmbo speech data of Kerake tribe people. The results from the Nmbo Sociolinguistic Corpus shows clear age-conditioned variation, with younger speakers showing a higher propensity for [h]-drop. Nmbo speakers residing both within and outside their Nmbo villages of origin appear to be partaking in the innovative [h]-drop. The origin of the [h]-drop appears to be from the village with a more multilingual profile, as would be predicted by the notion of a multilingual feature pool (Cheshire, Jenny, Kerswill, Paul, Fox, Sue, & Torgersen, Eivind (2011). Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(2), 151–196. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Mufwene, Salikoko S. (2001). The Ecology of language evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
Abstract (Japanese)
本稿では南パプアニューギニアの言語変異調査の結果を発表する。族外婚によって維持され、近隣言語の多言語話者で構成されるケラケ部族の言語、ナンボ語自然音声コーパスをもとに、名詞語頭音 [h]の無音化を分析した。年齢によるバリエーションが最も重要な予測変数であり、若年層話者が高確率で[h]を無音化するという結果が見られた。夫方居住婚制で族外婚を果たしたケラケ女性のバリエーションも言語同体と同様である。 Feature pool (Cheshire, Jenny, Kerswill, Paul, Fox, Sue, & Torgersen, Eivind (2011). Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 15(2), 151–196. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, Mufwene, Salikoko S. (2001). The Ecology of language evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar ) の概念に基づき[h]無音化の原点は最も多言語性が高いケラケ集落と見られる。
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Nmbo speech community
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Linguistic conditions
    • 4.2Sociolinguistic and linguistic results
  • 5.Analysis and discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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