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Article published In: Asia-Pacific Language Variation
Vol. 9:2 (2023) ► pp.156–194

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Directional constructions in Matukar Panau

A Bayesian approach to assessing variation

ORCiD logo with link | Australian National University
 | Australian National University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 3.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Australian National University.

Published online: 11 January 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.23005.dav
Abstract
The Oceanic language Matukar Panau has three equivalent morphosyntactic strategies for describing the direction of the event represented by a verb, with a system of ten directional morphemes that can appear in each construction. This variation is explored using a corpus from Matukar Panau and analysed quantitatively with Bayesian regression analyses to assess what factors influence the choice of directional construction. Variables pertaining to the lexical verb and the directional morphemes are found to be the most important factors affecting the variation in the directional system. Sociolinguistic factors are shown to play a less significant role. The findings have implications for the grammaticalization of directional elements, as well as the typology of directional constructions in Oceanic languages.
Abstract (German)
Die ozeanische Sprache Matukar Panau hat drei gleichwertige morphosyntaktische Strategien zur Richtungsbeschreibung eines Ereignisses das durch ein Verb ausgedrückt wird. Das Verb kann in Verbindung mit einem von zehn möglichen direktionalen Morphemen auftretten. Diese Variationen werden hier anhand des Matukar-Panau-Korpus mit der Methode der Bayesianischen Regression analysiert. Faktoren, welche die Entscheidung für die eine oder andere Variation beeinflussen, werden bestimmt. Variablen mit Einfluss auf das lexikalische Verb und die direktionalen Morpheme haben sich hierbei als wichtigste Faktoren herausgestellt, wohingegen sozioligusitische Faktoren eine gerinngere Rolle spielen. Die Ergebnisse haben Bedeutung für die Gramatikalisierung von direktionalen Elementen wie auch für die Typologie von Direktionalkonstruktionen der ozeanischen Sprachen alsgemein.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Matukar Panau language background
    • 1.2Matukar directional constructions
      • Directional constructions
      • SVC1 constructions
      • SVC2 constructions
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Corpus
    • 2.2Factors influencing directional construction choice
      • I.Internal variables
        • 1.Semantic type of directional morpheme
        • 2.Frequency of the directional morpheme as a main verb in the corpus
        • 3.Lexical semantics of the main verb
        • 4.Transitivity of the main verb
        • 5.Subject as speech act participant (SAP)
      • II.External variables
        • 6.Text genre
        • 7.Gender of the speaker
        • 8.Speaker age
        • 9.Speaker
    • 2.3Bayesian multinomial modelling
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Gloss abbreviations
  • References
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