Table Of ContentFrom Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics
Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS)
This series has been established as a companion series to the periodical
Studies in Language.
Editors
Werner Abraham Michael Noonan
University of Vienna University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee USA
Editorial Board
Joan Bybee Christian Lehmann
University of New Mexico University of Erfurt
Ulrike Claudi Robert E. Longacre
University of Cologne University of Texas, Arlington
Bernard Comrie Brian MacWhinney
Max Planck Institute, Leipzig Carnegie-Mellon University
University of California, Santa Barbara
Marianne Mithun
William Croft University of California, Santa Barbara
University of New Mexico
Edith Moravcsik
Östen Dahl University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
University of Stockholm
Masayoshi Shibatani
Gerrit J. Dimmendaal Rice University and Kobe University
University of Cologne
Russell S. Tomlin
Ekkehard König University of Oregon
Free University of Berlin
Volume 90
From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics
Edited by Pieter Muysken
From Linguistic Areas
to Areal Linguistics
Edited by
Pieter Muysken
Radboud University Nijmegen
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8
American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
From linguistic areas to areal linguistics / edited by Pieter Muysken.
p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, issn 0165-7763 ; v. 90)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Areal linguistics. I. Muysken, Pieter.
P130.F76 2008
409--dc22 2007034442
isbn 978 90 272 3100 0 (Hb; alk. paper)
© 2008 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Table of contents
Editor and contributing authors vii
1. Introduction: Conceptual and methodological
issues in areal linguistics 1
Pieter Muysken
2. The problem of the Caucasian Sprachbund 25
Viacheslav A. Chirikba
3. East Nusantara as a linguistic area 95
Marian Klamer, Ger Reesink and Miriam van Staden
4. The Guaporé-Mamoré region as a linguistic area 151
Mily Crevels and Hein van der Voort
5. An integrated areal-typological approach: Local convergence
of morphosyntactic features in the Balkan Sprachbund 181
Olga Mišeska Tomić
6. Zhuang: A Tai language with some Sinitic characteristics:
Post-verbal ‘can’ in Zhuang, Cantonese, Vietnamese and Lao 221
Rint Sybesma
Language index 275
Author index 281
Subject index 285
Place index 291
Editor and contributing authors
Pieter Muysken is professor of Papuan languages. His expertise lies in
linguistics at Radboud University that area.
Nijmegen, after previously working at
Miriam van Staden is currently
the Universities of Amsterdam and
a postdoc at the University of
Leiden. He was the recipient of a Spinoza
Amsterdam and author of Tidore,
Research Prize in 1998, and the current
a linguistic description of a language
volume grew out of the research program
of the North Moluccas.
Lexicon and Syntax set up with the funds
from this prize. Rint Sybesma is assistant professor at
the Chinese department of Leiden
Slava (Viacheslav) Chirikba
University, and carries out a research
is assistant professor at
project on southern Chinese
the department of Middle Eastern
languages and their neighbors.
languages at Leiden University and
a specialist on Caucasian languages. Olga Mišeska Tomić is emeritus
professor of English at the
Mily Crevels is working as a postdoctoral University of Novi Sad (Serbian
researcher at Radboud University Republic) and was a research fellow at
Nijmegen, on a project describing and Leiden University while working on this
comparing endangered Bolivian languages. project. She recently edited a volume on
Her specialism is language typology and the grammar of the Balkan languages
Bolivian languages. with Benjamins (Balkan Syntax and
Semantics) and has completed a
Marian Klamer is assistant professor at
monograph on the same topic.
the department of Indonesian languages
at Leiden University and the author of A Hein van der Voort is currently a post-
Grammar of Kambera. doctoral researcher at Radboud University
Nijmegen, on a project describing and
Ger Reesink is a postdoctoral comparing the endangered languages of
researcher at the Radboud University the Brazilian State of Rondonia. He is
Nijmegen, on a project describing the author of A Grammar of Kwaza, and
and comparing endangered a specialist on the languages of Rondonia.
Introduction
Conceptual and methodological issues
in areal linguistics
Pieter Muysken
Linguistics, Radboud University Nijmegen
1. Preliminary
This book aims at further exploring the approach to language description and com-
parison in terms of the regional context in which languages are spoken. It does this by
presenting a number of case studies in areal linguistics, and it covers linguistic areas
from four continents. Some of these concern a well-established linguistic area, such
as the Balkan, others document regions which have never been studied in an areal
perspective before, such as East Nusantara and the Guaporé-Mamoré region (involv-
ing parts of lowland Bolivia and the adjacent Brazilian state of Rondonia), yet others
involve areas which have been the subject of debate and recent scrutiny, such as the
Caucasus and South-East Asia. All studies present cultural and historical background,
as well as detailed information. However, they differ in their scope and linguistic theo-
retical framework, although they all stress the significance of language contact factors
in process of change.
In an extensive survey, Slava Chirikba convincingly shows that there is good reason
to accept the reality of a Sprachbund in the Caucasus, basing himself on a host of little
known materials, as well as on his own field research. Chirikba lists a whole range
of features, phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and lexical which are
shared by the Kartvelian and North Caucasian language groups, and as such are char-
acteristic of the Caucasus as a whole. Chirikba also discusses in considerable detail
processes of historical intermingling etc. that produced this result.
Similarly, Marian Klamer, Ger Reesink, Mirjam van Staden present the historical
and the linguistic evidence for East Nusantara (the archipelagoes of eastern Indonesia
and the adjacent regions of Papua) as a linguistic area. In this area Austronesian
languages and Papuan languages have influenced each other. Five features are focused
upon: possessor-possessum order in adnominal possession, the overt marking of the
distinction alienable vs. inalienable possession, and clause-final negation have dif-
fused into the Austronesian languages from the Papuan languages, while two features
have gone the other way: SVO as primary constituent order, and an inclusive/exclusive
opposition in the pronominal paradigm.
