Åshild Næss
University of Oslo
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Featured researches published by Åshild Næss.
Oceanic Linguistics | 2008
Åshild Næss; Brenda H. Boerger
Recent research has shown that the long-standing assumption that the Reefs– Santa Cruz languages have a non-Austronesian substrate is unlikely to be valid: the languages do show regular sound correspondences with Proto-Oceanic (Ross and Næss 2007), and the alleged noun classes cannot felicitously be analyzed as such (Næss 2006). This paper addresses the third argument given in previous work for a non-Austronesian substrate: the complex verb structures. Presenting data from both Natügu (Northern Santa Cruz) and Äiwoo (Reefs), we show that while some of the verb morphology has clear cognates in Proto-Oceanic, other parts can be understood as deriving from an earlier productive process of verb serialization followed by reduction of the forms found in such serialized constructions. Given that both verb serialization and grammaticalization of elements of serializing constructions are well known in Oceanic languages, this leaves no linguistic evidence for a non-Austronesian substrate in Reefs–Santa Cruz.
Archive | 2011
Åshild Næss; Even Hovdhaugen
This Grammar of Vaeakau-Taumako is the most comprehensive grammar of any Polynesian Outlier to date, and the first full-length grammar of any language of Temotu Province. Based on extensive fieldwork, it is structured as a reference grammar dealing with all aspects of language structure, from phonology to discourse organization, and including a selection of glossed texts.
Oceanic Linguistics | 2013
Åshild Næss
This paper examines three properties of the Reefs-Santa Cruz language Äiwoo that are unusual for an Oceanic language—a distinction between prefixal marking of subjects for intransitive verbs and suffixal marking for transitive verbs, OVA word order in clauses that are morphologically and syntactically transitive, and an ergatively structured verb phrase in OVA clauses—and one that is frequent in Oceanic languages, namely the existence of clauses that appear to be morphologically intransitive but syntactically transitive (socalled “transitive discord” in the terminology of Margetts). I argue that all these properties are straightforwardly explained by the assumption that the Äiwoo system derives from a western Austronesian-style symmetrical voice system where two basic changes have taken place: the loss of the contrast between an actor voice and an undergoer voice, and the accretion of subject pronouns as bound person markers on verbs. Given that Äiwoo is an Oceanic language, this suggests that a voice system must have persisted later into the development of Oceanic than has previously been assumed.
Oceanic Linguistics | 2015
Åshild Næss
This paper argues that the Äiwoo language of the Reef Islands shows what could be characterized as a symmetrical voice system with three voices: an actor voice, an undergoer voice, and a circumstantial voice. Although it differs from better-described symmetrical voice systems in lacking a syntactic pivot, the overall pattern of morphosyntactic alternations, as well as the discourse-pragmatic function, is essentially that of a symmetrical voice system. Moreover, the Äiwoo system combines the syntactic characteristics of a “Philippine-type” symmetrical voice system with the morphological characteristics of an “Indonesian-type” system in a way that appears to be unusual.This analysis, while confirming the status of the Reefs-Santa Cruz language group to which Äiwoo belongs as Austronesian, raises doubts about their current classification as Oceanic, since the symmetrical voice system of Proto-Austronesian is usually assumed to have been lost by the time of Proto-Oceanic. Alternatively, the analysis may be taken to imply that current reconstructions of Proto-Oceanic morphosyntax must be revised. Overall, it adds to the complex picture of voice and transitivity-related systems in Austronesian languages, and to the challenges involved in understanding their historical relationships.
International Journal of the Sociology of Language | 2012
Brenda H. Boerger; Åshild Næss; Anders Vaa; Rachel Emerine; Angela Hoover
Abstract This article looks back over 40 years of language and culture change in the region of the Solomon Islands where the four Reefs-Santa Cruz (RSC) languages are spoken. Taking the works of Davenport and Wurm as a starting point, we list specific linguistic changes we have identified and discuss the sociological factors which have both promoted and undermined the vitality of these languages. We then determine the level of vitality for each language through the recently proposed Extended Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale — EGIDS (Lewis and Simons 2010), and based on our results for the RSC languages, we provide a short evaluation of the usefulness of EGIDS for prioritizing language documentation efforts.
Language and Linguistics Compass | 2011
Åshild Næss
Verbs referring to acts of eating and drinking show a crosslinguistic tendency to behave in ways which distinguish them from other verbs in a language. Specifically, they tend to pattern like intransitive verbs in certain respects, even though they appear to conform to the definition of ‘prototypical transitive verbs’. The explanations which have been suggested for this behaviour fall into two main categories: those referring to telicity or Aktionsart, and those referring to the fact that such verbs describe acts which have ‘affected agents’, i.e. they have an effect on their agent as well as on their patient participant. The latter observation has further led to reexaminations of the notion of transitivity in general.
Oceanic Linguistics | 2011
Åshild Næss
This paper argues that the best way of analyzing the directional morphemes in the Polynesian Outlier Vaeakau-Taumako (Pileni) is as verbs that most frequently—but not exclusively—occur in serialization with another verb. The class of directionals in Polynesian in general is somewhat heterogeneous; most sources classify them as particles or adverbs, while often noting that some items have a limited verbal use, or are homophonous with verbs with similar meanings.The analysis of directionals as verbal in Vaeakau-Taumako suggests that they are less grammaticalized in this language than in most other Polynesian languages, and so raises the question of how this situation has arisen. One possible explanation is that the presence of verb serialization in Vaeakau-Taumako may have preserved the verbal nature of the directionals longer than in other Polynesian languages. This may in turn have been reinforced through contact with the neighboring Äiwoo language of the Reefs-Santa Cruz group, which has several serialization constructions that are structurally and functionally very similar to those found in Vaeakau-Taumako.A second possibility is that the difference between Vaeakau-Taumako and other Polynesian languages is only apparent, and that Polynesian directionals in general may have verbal properties to a greater extent than generally recognized. As Polynesian languages are poor in verbal morphology, distinguishing verb serialization from other types of complex verbal constructions in these languages is problematic, which might explain why directionals have typically not been analyzed as verbal.
Oceanic Linguistics | 2012
Åshild Næss
This paper examines a set of structural parallels between Vaeakau-Taumako (Pileni), a Polynesian Outlier spoken in Temotu Province in the Solomon Islands, and the Vanuatu Outliers Emae, Ifira-Mele, and Futuna-Aniwa. It shows that these four languages share a set of structural features that is not, as a whole, shared by other known Polynesian languages; other languages may show one or two of the features under discussion, but not all four. It argues that the parallels are too detailed to be coincidental, and asks why it should be that just these four languages show such detailed similarities in structure. While it is not possible on the basis of the available data to decide whether the similarities should be assumed to result from shared origins or contact (or both), it is proposed that they may be seen as tentative support for the suggestion made by Bayard that the Vanuatu Outliers (and West Uvean) received their primary settlement from the Vaeakau-Taumako area, rather than directly from Triangle Polynesia.
Lingua | 2004
Åshild Næss
Oceanic Linguistics | 2007
Malcolm Ross; Åshild Næss