Central Solomon languages

Central Solomons
	(tentative)
Geographic; distribution	Solomon Islands
Linguistic classification	One of the world's primary language families
Subdivisions	Bilua; Touo; Lavukaleve; Savosavo;
Glottolog	None
	Language families of the Solomon Islands. ; Central Solomons

The Central Solomon languages are the four Papuan languages spoken in the state of the Solomon Islands.

The four languages are, listed from northwest to southeast,

Bilua of Vella Lavella and Ghizo islands,
Touo (also known as Baniata) of Rendova Island,
Lavukaleve of the Russell Islands, and
Savosavo of Savo Island.

Classification

The four Central Solomon languages were identified as a family by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1908. The languages are at best distantly related, and evidence for their relationship is meager. Dunn and Terrill (2012) argue that the lexical evidence vanishes when Oceanic loanwords are excluded.[1] Ross (2005) and Pedrós (2015), however, accept a connection, based on similarities among pronouns and other grammatical forms.

Pedrós (2015) suggests, tentatively, that the branching of the family is as follows.

Central Solomons

Lavukaleve–Touo
Savosavo–Bilua

Savosavo and Bilua, despite being the most distant languages geographically, both split more recently than Lavukaleve and Touo according to Pedrós.

Palmer (2018) regards the evidence for Central Solomons as tentative but promising.[2]

Pronoun reconstructions

Pedrós (2015) argues for the existence of the family through comparison of pronouns and other gender, person and number morphemes and based on the existence of a common syncretism between 2nd person nonsingular and inclusive. He performs an internal reconstruction for the pronominal morphemes of each language and then proposes a reconstruction of some of the pronouns of the claimed family. The reconstructions are the following:

	1 singular	2 singular	inclusive/ 2 non-singular	1 exclusive
Pre-Savosavo	*a-ɲi	*no	*me	a-
Pre-Touo	e̤	noe	*me	e̤-
Pre-Lavukaleve	*ŋai	*ŋo	*me	e
Pre-Bilua	ani/aŋai	*ŋo	me	e-
Proto-Central Solomons	ani/aŋai	*ŋo	*me	*e

Numerals

Central Solomon numerals from Pedrós (2015):

numeral	Savosavo	Touo	Lavukaleve	Bilua
1	ˈela, ˈpade / pa	aɺo / azo	ˈtelakom, ˈtelako	ˈomadeu, ˈmadeu
2	ˈedo	e̤ɺi	ˈlelemal, ˈlelaol, ˈlelaɰel, ˈlemal	ˈomuga, ˈmuga
3	iˈɰiβa / iˈɰia	hie	ˈeŋa	ˈzouke, ke
4	ˈaɰaβa	a̤vo	nun	ˈariku
5	ˈara	sodu	ˈsie	ˈsike, ke

As the comparisons indicate, lexical evidence for the relatedness of the four languages is limited.

Syntax

All Central Solomon languages have SOV word order except for Bilua, which has SVO word order to due Oceanic influence.[3]

References

Michael Dunn & Angela Terrill (2012) Assessing the lexical evidence for a Central Solomons Papuan family using the Oswalt Monte Carlo test. Diachronica 29:1–27.
Palmer, Bill (2018). "Language families of the New Guinea Area". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 1–20. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.
Stebbins, Tonya; Evans, Bethwyn; Terrill, Angela (2018). "The Papuan languages of Island Melanesia". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 775–894. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

Ross, Malcolm, 2001. "Is there an East Papuan phylum? Evidence from pronouns", in The boy from Bundaberg. Studies in Melanesian linguistics in honour of Tom Dutton, ed. by Andrew Pawley, Malcolm Ross and Darrell Tryon: 301-322. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Ancient Language History. Michael Dunn, Angela Terrill, Ger Reesink, Robert A. Foley, Stephen C. Levinson. Science magazine, 23 Sept. 2005, vol. 309, p 2072.
Ross, Malcolm, 2005. "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages", in Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan speaking peoples, ed. by Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson: 15-65. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Pedrós, Toni, 2015. "New arguments for a Central Solomons family based on evidence from pronominal morphemes". Oceanic Linguistics, vol. 54, no. 2 (358-395).

External links

Central Solomons languages database at TransNewGuinea.org
Central Solomons word lists (Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database)

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[1] Michael Dunn & Angela Terrill (2012) Assessing the lexical evidence for a Central Solomons Papuan family using the Oswalt Monte Carlo test. Diachronica 29:1–27.

[Palmer-LLNGA-2] Palmer, Bill (2018). "Language families of the New Guinea Area". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 1–20. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.

[Stebbins-Island-3] Stebbins, Tonya; Evans, Bethwyn; Terrill, Angela (2018). "The Papuan languages of Island Melanesia". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 775–894. ISBN 978-3-11-028642-7.