Spatial Reference in Rongga (ISO 639-3: ror), Balinese (ISO 639-3: ban), and Indonesian (ISO 639-3: ind)

Many scholars have proposed concepts relevant to spatial reference. Herskovits (1982) proposed that the topological concepts support, contiguity and containment are basic in English, while Levinson et al.'s (2003) examination of nine unrelated languages revealed that the concept attachment is primary. Neither of these proposals is confirmed in Rongga, Balinese, and Indonesian. My empirical and experimental investigation of these languages showed that the concept expectedness governs the use of topological prepositions in the languages. Non-topologically, it has long been claimed that a relative frame of reference is universal. This claim is also not confirmed in this study. My non-topological relation study reveals that Rongga and Balinese use a landmark system, while Indonesian practices a relative system. The Balinese landmark system changes to an absolute system when speakers leave the island. In short, this study reveals that previous proposals on the concepts relevant to spatial reference are not universally supported

Semantic Typology Semantics of Locative Relations in Rongga (ISO 639-3: ROR)

Abstract Many scholars have proposed a universal set of locative relations. Herskovits's comprehensive study of English locative relations found that locative concepts such as inclusion, support and contiguity, and coincidence are basic in English. Her findings offer support for strong Universal Conceptual Categories. On the other hand, Levinson et al.'s examination of locative relations of nine unrelated languages revealed that the basic concepts are attachments, superadjacency, full containment, subadjacency, and proximity which suggest Universal Tendencies rather than Universal Conceptual Categories. This study investigates how locative relations are encoded in Rongga and their implications for the universalism of locative relations. A standard elicitation technique (topological relation picture series) was used in this study. It appears that Rongga is unique in the priority it gives to the notion of functional relations over locative relations. Functional relations refer to the "natural" function between located and reference objects. Thus, when a natural function is present the relation is functional rather than spatial. Rongga uses the preposition one to refer to "expected" functional relations. Additionally, the natural functional relation defines what "normality" is in Rongga. However, when the natural relation is absent the relation becomes locative. Therefore, the relation is "unexpected". Various prepositions such as zheta wewo/zheta tolo 'on', zheta wena 'over/above', zhale one 'inside', zhale wena/zhale lewu 'below/under' are used to express locative relations. In other words, instead of encoding the locative relationship based upon the locative concepts described by Herskovits and Levinson et al., Rongga emphasizes the importance of natural function between located and reference objects. Since the functional relation is highly salient in Rongga, the notions functionality should be considered in addition to locative relations. Furthermore, the salience of functional relations in Rongga suggests that the functional preposition (one) indicating functional relation is acquired earlier because it is morphologically and syntactically less complex and its semantics is more abstract than the prepositions indicating the locative relations (zheta wewo/zheta tolo 'on', zheta wena 'over/above', zhale one 'inside', zhale wena/zhale lewu 'below/under'). In short, the functional relation between objects is crucial in Rongga, and is used to separate functional relationships from the locative relationships

THE ACQUISITION OF UNIVERSAL QUANTIFIERS IN INDONESIAN (ISO 639-3: IND): A PRELIMINARY REPORT

Current study specifically concerns with the acquisition of universal quantifiers inIndonesian, e.g., masing-masing/setiap “each/every”, semua “all”. Previous studiese.g., Vendler (1967), Ioup (1975), Brooks & Braine (1996), Brooks et al. (2001)showed that all and each/every have innate collective, e.g., All the boys are riding anelephant, and distributive, e.g., Each boy is riding an elephant, representationsrespectively. This study mainly aims to reinvestigate the innateness of the twomeanings. The study used picture selection tasks. Five different sets of stimuli wereemployed. Three different groups of subjects participated: 20 younger children (4-to-6year old), 30 older children (7-to-12-year old), and 30 adults (17-to-22-year old). The results indicated that there was no evidence that the younger children were able torestrict the use of quantifiers to its domain, i.e., the noun it modifies. Furthermore, there was even no evidence that they could assign the distributive and collectivemeanings to masing-masing “each” and semua “all” respectively. In contrast, over95% of the older children’s and adults’ use of the quantifiers was correct. Additionally,their assignment to the distributive meaning of masing-masing “each” was over 90%correct. For semua “all”, nevertheless, only about 50% of their responses representedthe canonical meaning, i.e., collective. Moreover, the results from quantifier spreadingtests informed that half of the younger children preferred a symmetrical relation between masing-masing “each” and its domain, while the other half preferred anasymmetrical relation. Thus, their preference to the symmetrical response, as suggested by Philip (1995), is not observed here. To conclude, all the evidence suggeststhat children’s universal quantifier acquisition is delayed until they are approximatelyat age 7. The learning process, in the sense of Bowerman (2001), and Borer andWexler’s Maturation Hypothesis (1987) might factor in the delay. In other words, theinnate collective and distributive meanings of all and each/every are not confirmed in this study

Semantics of Functional and Locative Relations in Rongga

Many scholars have proposed a universal set of locative relations. Herskovits’s comprehensive study of English locative relations found that locative concepts such as inclusion, support and contiguity, and coincidence are basic in English. Her findings offer support for strong Universal Conceptual Categories. On the other hand, Levinson et al.’s examination of locative relations of nine unrelated languages revealed that the basic concepts are attachments, superadjacency, full containment, subadjacency, and proximity which suggest Universal Tendencies rather than Universal Conceptual Categories. This study investigates how locative relations are encoded in Rongga and their implications for the universalism of locative relations. A standard elicitation technique was used

Direct Versus Indirect Causation as a Semantic Linguistic Universal:Using a Computational Model of English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, and K'iche' Mayan to Predict Grammaticality Judgments in Balinese

The aim of this study was to test the claim that languages universally employ morphosyntactic marking to differentiate events of more- versus less-direct causation, preferring to mark them with less- and more- overt marking, respectively (e.g., Somebody broke the window vs. Somebody MADE the window break; *Somebody cried the boy vs. Somebody MADE the boy cry). To this end, we investigated whether a recent computational model which learns to predict speakers' by-verb relative preference for the two causatives in English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, and K'iche' Mayan is able to generalize to a sixth language on which it has never been trained: Balinese. Judgments of the relative acceptability of the less- and more-transparent causative forms of 60 verbs were collected from 48 native-speaking Balinese adults. The composite crosslinguistic computational model was able to predict these judgments, not only for verbs that it had seen, but also--in a split-half validation test--to verbs that it had never seen in any language. A "random-semantics" model showed only a relatively small decrement in performance with seen verbs, whose behavior can be learned on a verb-by-verb basis, but achieved zero correlation with human judgments when generalizing to unseen verbs. Together, these findings suggest that Balinese conceptualizes directness of causation in a similar way to these unrelated languages, and therefore constitute support for the view that the distinction between more- versus less-distinct causation constitutes a morphosyntactic universal

Direct Versus Indirect Causation as a Semantic Linguistic Universal: Using a Computational Model of English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, and K'iche' Mayan to Predict Grammaticality Judgments in Balinese.

The aim of this study was to test the claim that languages universally employ morphosyntactic marking to differentiate events of more- versus less-direct causation, preferring to mark them with less- and more- overt marking, respectively (e.g., Somebody broke the window vs. Somebody MADE the window break; *Somebody cried the boy vs. Somebody MADE the boy cry). To this end, we investigated whether a recent computational model which learns to predict speakers' by-verb relative preference for the two causatives in English, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, and K'iche' Mayan is able to generalize to a sixth language on which it has never been trained: Balinese. Judgments of the relative acceptability of the less- and more-transparent causative forms of 60 verbs were collected from 48 native-speaking Balinese adults. The composite crosslinguistic computational model was able to predict these judgments, not only for verbs that it had seen, but also--in a split-half validation test--to verbs that it had never seen in any language. A "random-semantics" model showed only a relatively small decrement in performance with seen verbs, whose behavior can be learned on a verb-by-verb basis, but achieved zero correlation with human judgments when generalizing to unseen verbs. Together, these findings suggest that Balinese conceptualizes directness of causation in a similar way to these unrelated languages, and therefore constitute support for the view that the distinction between more- versus less-distinct causation constitutes a morphosyntactic universal

Domain change and ethnolinguistic vitality: Evidence from the fishing lexicon of Loloan Malay

This paper reports a study on the vitality of the fishing lexicon in Loloan Malay. The study was aimed at finding the nature and pattern of domain change, its intergenerational transmission, and its significance for overall ethnolinguistic vitality. The data were collected from a representative group of fishermen through tests that were complemented by interviews. A simple quantitative analysis was undertaken to discover patterns of change, and the ethnographic method was also used to augment the analysis. This study contributes to the sociolinguistic research on language vitality, contact-induced change, and the endangerment of minority languages. The findings reveal a surprising paradox. Although it is still considered to have high cultural importance, the fishing domain is critically endangered. It is argued that the low vitality of the fishing domain does not affect the vitality of the Loloan Malay language in general. The reason is that the linguistic ideology that underpins the group identity of Loloan Malay at the macro-societal level is not tied to fishing, but rather, to religion. This paper also discusses the complexity of the variables involved in domain change, particularly the extra-linguistic factors that contribute to the changes in the fishing domain due to modern socio-economic and technological progress.National Foreign Language Resource Cente