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Rotuman and Fijian Case-Marking Strategies and Their Historical Development

Rotuman and Fijian Case-Marking Strategies and Their Historical Development and Their Historical Development1 Ritsuko Kikusawa research school of pacific and asian studies, the australian national university institute for the study of languages and cultures of asia and africa, tokyo university of foreign studies Although the Fijian languages and Rotuman are thought to be closely related genetically, and are all accusative languages, considerable differences are observed in their case-marking strategies. This paper describes the various strategies to be found in these languages, and discusses how they could have developed from a single protosystem. It is argued that in Rotuman, where it is word order alone that marks nouns as Nominative or Accusative, the preverbal position of clitic pronouns was generalized to become also the position of full noun phrases. On the other hand, in Fijian languages, different strategies resulted in the original clitic pronouns either remaining as clitics, or becoming grammaticalized as agreement features on the verb. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 AN OVERVIEW. The Fijian languages and Rotuman are considered to belong to the Central Paci²c language family and to be closely related to one another.2 Although each of these languages shows an accusative case-marking system, considerable differences are found in their case-marking strategies, that is, how nouns are http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Oceanic Linguistics University of Hawai'I Press

Rotuman and Fijian Case-Marking Strategies and Their Historical Development

Oceanic Linguistics , Volume 40 (1) – Jan 6, 2001

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Publisher
University of Hawai'I Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 University of Hawai'i Press.
ISSN
1527-9421
Publisher site
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Abstract

and Their Historical Development1 Ritsuko Kikusawa research school of pacific and asian studies, the australian national university institute for the study of languages and cultures of asia and africa, tokyo university of foreign studies Although the Fijian languages and Rotuman are thought to be closely related genetically, and are all accusative languages, considerable differences are observed in their case-marking strategies. This paper describes the various strategies to be found in these languages, and discusses how they could have developed from a single protosystem. It is argued that in Rotuman, where it is word order alone that marks nouns as Nominative or Accusative, the preverbal position of clitic pronouns was generalized to become also the position of full noun phrases. On the other hand, in Fijian languages, different strategies resulted in the original clitic pronouns either remaining as clitics, or becoming grammaticalized as agreement features on the verb. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 AN OVERVIEW. The Fijian languages and Rotuman are considered to belong to the Central Paci²c language family and to be closely related to one another.2 Although each of these languages shows an accusative case-marking system, considerable differences are found in their case-marking strategies, that is, how nouns are

Journal

Oceanic LinguisticsUniversity of Hawai'I Press

Published: Jan 6, 2001

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