Cover not available

Article published In: Development of tense and aspect systems
Edited by Jadranka Gvozdanović
[Journal of Historical Linguistics 10:2] 2020
► pp. 167–208

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

The history of tense and aspect in the Sogeram family

 | University of Oregon
Published online: 21 August 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhl.18012.dan
Abstract
This paper presents an overview of the tens-aspect system in the Sogeram languages of Papua New Guinea. Taking the Proto-Sogeram reconstruction in Daniels (. 2015. A Reconstruction of Proto-Sogeram: Phonology, Lexicon, and Morphosyntax. Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2020. Grammatical Reconstruction: The Sogeram Languages of New Guinea. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) as a starting point, I outline the innovations that have taken place in daughter languages and discuss the patterns of change that emerge. The study confirms a variety of known cross-linguistic tendencies, such as the common occurrence of the analytic-to-synthetic and aspect-to-tense pathways of change. More notable trends include the diachronic stability of the present and most remote past tenses; the instability of the middle pasts and future; the stability of the relative semantic ordering of tenses; the absence of a pathway leading from relative-tense to absolute-tense marking; and the ability of innovative tenses to be inserted anywhere into the five-way tense system of Proto-Sogeram. The study also illustrates how featural systems can interact over time, at first by introducing a new feature value in one system which can combine with values from another (as with the Manat habitual), and then, if the featural distinction is lost, creating a pattern of distributed exponence (as in Mum).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Proto-Sogeram tense-aspect system
    • 2.1Synthetic forms
    • 2.2Serial verb constructions
  • 3.Innovations
    • 3.1Gants innovations
    • 3.2Kursav innovations
    • 3.3Aisi innovations
    • 3.4Mum innovations
    • 3.5Sirva innovations
    • 3.6Apalɨ innovations
    • 3.7Manat innovations
    • 3.8Nend innovations
    • 3.9Mand innovations
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Generalizations about source constructions
    • 4.2Generalizations about target constructions
    • 4.3What we do not see
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (59)
References
Andersen, T. David & John R. Roberts. 1991. An Exception to the Hodiernal/Non-hodiernal Distinction. Studies in Language 15:2.295–299. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, Gregory D. S. 2006. Auxiliary Verb Constructions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caballero, Gabriela & Alice C. Harris. 2012. A Working Typology of Multiple Exponence. Current Issues in Morphological Theory: (Ir)regularity, Analogy and Frequency ed. by Ferenc Kiefer, Mária Ladányi & Péter Siptár, 163–188. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Capell, Arthur. 1951. Languages of Bogia District, New Guinea – 1. Oceania 22:2.130–147. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carroll, Matthew. 2016. The Ngkolmpu Language, with Special Reference to Distributed Exponence. Doctoral Dissertation, Australian National University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dahl, Eystein. 2016. Toward a Formal Model of Semantic Change: A Neo-Reichenbachian Approach to the Development of the Vedic Past Tense System. Lingua Posnaniensis 57:1.41–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dakin, Karen. 1979. Phonological Changes in Nahuatl: The Tense/Aspect/Number Systems. International Journal of American Linguistics 45:1.48–71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daniels, Don. 2010. A Preliminary Phonological History of the Sogeram Languages of Papua New Guinea. Oceanic Linguistics 49:1.163–193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. A Reconstruction of Proto-Sogeram: Phonology, Lexicon, and Morphosyntax. Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Magɨ: An Undocumented Language of Papua New Guinea. Oceanic Linguistics 55:1.199–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017a. Gants is a Sogeram Language. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 351.82–93.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. Grammatical Reconstruction: The Sogeram Languages of New Guinea. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daniels, Don, Danielle Barth & Wolfgang Barth. 2019. Subgrouping the Sogeram Languages: A Critical Appraisal of Historical Glottometry. Journal of Historical Linguistics 9:1.92–127. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daniels, Don & Greville G. Corbett. 2019. Repartitioning. Language 95:4.711–750. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Devos, Maud & Jenneke van der Wal (eds.). 2014. ‘COME’ and ‘GO’ Off the Beaten Grammaticalization Path (=Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 272). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas & Honoré Watanabe. 2016. Insubordination. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foley, William A. 2010. Clause Linkage and Nexus in Papuan Languages. Clause Linking and Clause Hierarchy: Syntax and Pragmatics ed. by Isabelle Bril, 27–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018. The Morphosyntactic Typology of Papuan Languages. The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide ed. by Bill Palmer, 895–937. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
François, Alexandre. 2014. Trees, Waves and Linkages: Models of Language Diversification. The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics ed. by Claire Bowern & Bethwyn Evans, 161–189. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, Kyle. n.d. Nend Texts. Electronic files, Pioneer Bible Translators.
. 1990. Nend Grammar Essentials. Two Grammatical Studies (=Data Papers on Papua New Guinea Languages 37) ed. by John R. Roberts, 73–156. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1993. Auxiliaries: Cognitive Forces and Grammaticalization. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2002. World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees. 2011. The Grammaticalization of Tense and Aspect. The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization ed. by Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine, 580–594. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hsiao, Suying. 2013. The Grammatical Temporal System from Middle Mongolian to Modern Mongolian. Language and Linguistics 14:6.1075–1103.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ingram, Andrew. 2001. Anamuxra: A Language of Madang Province, Papua New Guinea. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Sydney.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kalyan, Siva & Alexandre François. 2018. Freeing the Comparative Method from the Tree Model: A Framework for Historical Glottometry. Let’s Talk about Trees: Genetic Relationships of Languages and their Phylogenic Representation ed. by In Ritsuko Kikusawa & Lawrence Reid, 59–89. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keine, Stefan. 2013. Deconstructing Switch Reference. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 31:3.767–826. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kragh, Kirsten Jeppesen. 2015. The Reorganisation of the Tense, Aspect and Mode Paradigms of French. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 47:2.174–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kula, Nancy C. 2017. Reduction in Remoteness Distinctions and Reconfiguration in the Bemba Past Tense. Transactions of the Philological Society 115:1.27–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuteva, Tania. 2001. Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meillet, Antoine. 1975 [1912]. L’évolution des formes grammaticales. Linguistique historique et linguistique générale ed. by Antoine Meillet, 130–148. Paris: Champion.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nurse, Derek. 2008. Tense and Aspect in Bantu. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pawley, Andrew. 1995. C. L. Voorhoeve and the Trans New Guinea Phylum Hypothesis. Tales from a Concave World: Liber amicorum Bert Voorhoeve ed. by Connie Baak, Mary Bakker & Dick van der Meij, 83–123. Leiden: Leiden University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. The Chequered Career of the Trans New Guinea Hypothesis: Recent Research and its Implications. Papuan Pasts: Cultural, Linguistic and Biological Histories of Papuan-Speaking Peoples ed. by Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Jack Golson & Robin Hide, 67–107. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pawley, Andrew & Harald Hammarström. 2017. The Trans New Guinea family. The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide ed. by Bill Palme, 21–195. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reinöhl, Uta & Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 2017. Renewal: A Figure of Speech or a Process sui generis? Language 93:2.381–413. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Roberts, John R. 1997. Switch-Reference in Papua New Guinea: A Preliminary Survey. Papers in Papuan Linguistics No. 3 (=Pacific Linguistics A 87) ed. by Andrew Pawley, 101–241. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ross, Malcolm. 2005. Pronouns as a Preliminary Diagnostic for Grouping Papuan Languages. Papuan pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples ed. by Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Jack Golson & Robin Hide, 15–65. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sarvasy, Hannah. 2014. A Grammar of Nungon: A Papuan Language of Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Doctoral Dissertation, James Cook University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sweeney, Mike. n.d. Mum Texts. Electronic files, Pioneer Bible Translators.
. 1994. A Description of the Phonology of the Katiati (Mum) Language. Unpublished manuscript, Pioneer Bible Translators.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
de Vries, Lourens. 1997. The Rise of Switch-Reference in the Awyu Languages of Irian Jaya. Language Change and Functional Explanations (=Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 98) ed. by Jadranka Gvozdanović, 89–108. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wade, Martha. n.d. Apalɨ Texts. Electronic files, Pioneer Bible Translators.
. 1989. A Survey of the Grammatical Structures and Semantic Functions of the Apalɨ (Emerum) Language. MS, Pioneer Bible Translators.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1993. Language Convergence or Divergence: The Case of the Apalɨ (Emerum) Language. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 24:1.73–93.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997. Switch Reference and Control in Apalɨ. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 28:1.1–16.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Z’graggen, John A. 1975. The Madang-Adelbert Range Subphylum. Papuan languages and the New Guinea Linguistic Scene (=Pacific Linguistics C 38) ed. by Stephen A. Wurm, 569–612. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1980. A Comparative Word List of the Southern Adelbert Range Languages, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea (=Pacific Linguistics D 33). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue