Papuan Malay word stress reduces lexical alternatives

This study investigates the extent to which word stress facilitates word disambiguation in Papuan Malay. Although there is consistent acoustic support for word stress patterns in this language, the function of word stress in Indonesian languages, including Papuan Malay, has been disputed in several studies. Based on a word list of phonetically transcribed Papuan Malay words, an analysis of wordembeddings was carried out. The number of words that are embedded in other words was shown to explain the role of word stress in the word recognition processes crosslinguistically. The results of the lexical analysis indicate that Papuan Malay is somewhat similar to English, a language where word stress differences are mainly signalled by vowel quality and to a lesser extent by suprasegmental cues. The results are discussed within the context of cross-linguistic cues to word stress and shed a new light on the controversy concerning word stress in Indonesian languages.Theoretical and Experimental Linguistic

Kwényï: A Sketch Grammar from a Historical Perspective

This dissertation is a sketch grammar of the Oceanic Kwényï language of New Caledonia. It aims to provide an updated synchronic description of the language and an understanding of the language’s diachronic sound change. A synchronic description of Kwényï is important as it is understudied despite being described as a rare tonal language among Oceanic and Austronesian languages. A diachronic study of the language’s conservative and innovative sound changes contributes to the understanding of language change among Oceanic languages. This dissertation also examines theories of tonogenesis and tonoexodus against the synchronic description of tone in Kwényï and proposes possible explanations of existing gaps. The analysis in this dissertation is based on qualitative fieldwork sessions with three native speakers of Kwényï over two fieldtrips to the Isle of Pines, New Caledonia. It includes the analysis of short texts and three hymns as a source of data. Some quantitative methods were used to support preliminary observations in this sketch grammar. The result is an overview of Kwényï’s grammar, with a greater focus on its phonetics and phonology and some observations of its morphology and syntax. A comparison of Kwényï and its related languages is contrasted against proto Oceanic reconstructions to understand the language in a broader context, historically and typologically. The analysis reflects ongoing language change as some contrastive features such as vowel length and tone appear to be losing their significance. This sketch lays groundwork for future research of Kwényï and its related languages. It also fills the gap in understanding tone within the Oceanic and Austronesian language family