This dissertation examines the Malayic varieties spoken in Kelantan and Terengganu, two Malaysian states located on the northeast coast of the Malay Peninsula. It focuses on three varieties, namely... Show moreThis dissertation examines the Malayic varieties spoken in Kelantan and Terengganu, two Malaysian states located on the northeast coast of the Malay Peninsula. It focuses on three varieties, namely Kelantan Malay, Coastal Terengganu Malay and Inland Terengganu Malay, all belonging to the Malayic subgroup within the Austronesian language family. On the basis of data gathered through linguistic fieldwork undertaken by the author, this dissertation provides the most comprehensive description of these languages to date and offers an analysis of their historical developments.The three Malayic varieties under investigation display notable similarities in their phonological and morphosyntactic patterns, characterised by significant phonological and morphological reduction. Despite these common features, however, it is concluded that these varieties do not form a discrete subgroup within the Malayic languages. The common changes observed in their consonant systems must have followed distinct developments in the vowel systems. Furthermore, the morphological reduction was primarily driven by internal phonological changes, and no clear traces of substrate influences have been found.It is proposed that Inland Terengganu Malay represents a separate variety, distinct from Kelantan Malay and Coastal Terengganu Malay. A two-wave migration pattern is suggested: speakers of Inland Terengganu Malay likely arrived in the region earlier, whereas the speakers of Kelantan Malay and Coastal Terengganu Malay arrived at a later stage. Show less
Shiwiar is a language spoken by around 1,200 people in the Amazonian lowlands of eastern Ecuador and northern Peru. It belongs to the Chicham (Jivaroan) language family. This work is the first... Show moreShiwiar is a language spoken by around 1,200 people in the Amazonian lowlands of eastern Ecuador and northern Peru. It belongs to the Chicham (Jivaroan) language family. This work is the first grammatical description of the language, and it is based on a 30-hour audio-visual corpus of natural speech, collected over 12 months of fieldwork between 2011 and 2016 in the Pastaza province of Ecuador.This dissertation is an analysis of Shiwiar phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and information structure. Some of the most salient and typologically interesting phenomena described include the high degree of phonetic and phonological variability in the speech community, a rare type of differential object marking, a rich paradigm of pronominal indexing on the verb, and the extensive use of clause chains as a discursive and clause combining device. This work also engages with the areal and typological literature to shed light on their diachronic development. From a methodological perspective, special emphasis is given throughout this dissertation to the value of using natural language data for linguistic analysis, and the importance of committing to a high standard of transparency and resolvability with regards to the data. Show less
Though formal linguistics may seem far removed from projects of decolonization, the materials with which linguists work are often rich with insights into other ways of knowing, other ways of living... Show moreThough formal linguistics may seem far removed from projects of decolonization, the materials with which linguists work are often rich with insights into other ways of knowing, other ways of living, and, for the purposes of this volume, other ways of navigating colonial power. Pakani, a story gathered within a larger project to understand the grammar of the Gorwaa language, is a vivid account of how the Gorwaa people responded to a mandatory military training programme in which every able-bodied young man was to be sent far away from the traditional homeland and incorporated into a national fighting force. For a descriptive linguist, Pakani is a useful source of grammatical structures. For a reader interested in learning about how one group of people engaged with the sweeping changes brought about by European colonization of East Africa, Pakani represents one of the few Gorwaa accounts available in English. This paper presents 134 lines of the Pakani story, transcribed, translated into English, along with a linguistic gloss of the words. Additionally, each line of text given may be resolved back to its original utterance in an open access audiovisual record available online through the Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS. Show less
