Cover not available
Article published In:
Diachronica
Vol. 40:3 (2023) ► pp.287–340

Papuan-Austronesian contact and the spread of numeral systems in Melanesia

ORCID logo | Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
This study analyzes the numeral systems of Austronesian and Papuan languages, investigating their areal distribution and considering their most likely ancestral states. The presence or absence of different methods of numeration has often been ascribed to contact-induced change. This can certainly be seen in scholarship pertaining to Melanesia, where Austronesian languages probably first came into contact with Papuan languages around 3,500 years ago. Indeed, since Proto-Austronesian is reconstructed as having employed a decimal (base-10) numeral system (with reflexes occurring throughout the Austronesian world), the presence of quinary (base-5) numeral systems in the Austronesian languages of Melanesia has commonly been attributed to contact with Papuan languages. Relying on a typological survey of 1,825 languages, this paper argues that highly conventionalized quinary systems were probably rare in Melanesia prior to the arrival of Austronesian languages. Rather, it was more likely that Austronesian speakers spread lexicalized quinary systems to Papuan groups, not the other way around. In making this argument, the paper stresses that, while numeration may be something that is linguistically encoded in a systematic fashion, it may also be realized as a cultural feature without strongly conventionalized lexicalized expressions.
Keywords: areal typology, counting, binary, quinary, decimal, New Guinea, Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Papuan, Austronesian
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Coding process
    • 2.2Languages and classification
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Austronesian
    • 3.2Papuan
  • 4.The geographical distribution of numeral systems in the New Guinea area
  • 5.Reconstructing numerals greater than ‘two’ in Papuan families
  • 6.Limited conventionalization in Papuan quinary systems
  • 7.The typological profile of Papuan numeral systems
  • 8.A cultural practice of digit tallying
  • 9.Contact and quinary systems
  • 10.Conclusion
  • Supplementary material
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 19 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.22005.bar
References (91)
References
Barlow, Russell. 2018. A grammar of Ulwa. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa dissertation. [URL]
. 2020a. Notes on Mwakai, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 381. 37–99. [URL]
. 2020b. A sketch grammar of Pondi. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2021. Ambakich phonological sketch. Language and Linguistics in Oceania 131. 32–88. [URL]
. 2022. Numerals of the Pacific: A collection of numeral terms in Austronesian and Papuan languages. [URL]
Barlow, Russell, Sieghard Beller, Andrea Bender, Hans-Jörg Bibiko, Robert Forkel, Simon Greenhill … Annemarie Verkerk. 2020. Numeralbank. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. [URL]
Bender, Andrea & Sieghard Beller. 2012. Nature and culture of finger counting: Diversity and representational effects of an embodied cognitive tool. Cognition 124(2). 156–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blust, Robert. 1984/1985. The Austronesian homeland: A linguistic perspective. Asian Perspectives 26(1). 45–67. [URL]
. 2005. Review of The Oceanic Languages , by John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley. Oceanic Linguistics 44(2). 544–558. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. Remote Melanesia: One history or two? An addendum to Donohue and Denham. Oceanic Linguistics 47(2). 445–459. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. The Austronesian languages. Revised edition (A-PL 008). Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. [URL]
. 2021. Counting in the Admiralty Islands. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 391. 19–55. [URL]
Blust, Robert, Stephen Trussel & Alexander D. Smith. 2023. The Austronesian comparative dictionary online. [URL]
Bowern, Claire & Jason Zentz. 2012. Diversity in the numeral systems of Australian languages. Anthropological Linguistics 54(2). 133–160. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Capell, Arthur. 1933. The structure of the Oceanic languages. Oceania 3(4). 418–434. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1976. Austronesian and Papuan “mixed” languages: General remarks. In Stephen A. Wurm (ed.), New Guinea area languages and language study, volume 2: Austronesian languages (PL-C39), 527–579. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [URL]
Chan, Eugene. ongoing. Numeral systems of the world’s languages. [URL]
Comrie, Bernard. 1997. Some problems in the theory and typology of numeral systems. In Bohumil Palek (ed.), Proceedings of LP ’96: Typology: Prototypes, item orderings and universals, 41–56. Prague: Charles University Press.Google Scholar
. 2005. Endangered numeral systems. In Jan Wohlgemuth & Tyko Dirksmeyer (eds.), Bedrohte Vielfalt: Aspekte des Sprach(en)tods / Aspects of language death, 203–230. Berlin: Weißensee Verlag.Google Scholar
. 2013. Numeral bases. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. [URL]
. 2020. Revisiting Greenberg’s “Generalizations about numeral systems” (1978). Journal of Universal Language 21(2). 43–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Donohue, Mark. 2004. A grammar of the Skou language of New Guinea. Unpublished manuscript. [URL]
Donohue, Mark & Tim Denham. 2008. The language of Lapita: Vanuatu and an early Papuan presence in the Pacific. Oceanic Linguistics 47(2). 433–444. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dutton, Thomas E. 1976. Magori and similar languages of south-east Papua. In Stephen A. Wurm (ed.), New Guinea area languages and language study, volume 2: Austronesian languages (PL-C39), 581–636. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [URL]
Edwards, Owen. 2015. The position of Enggano within Austronesian. Oceanic Linguistic 54(1). 54–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Elias, Alexander. 2018. Lio and the Central Flores languages. Leiden: Universiteit Leiden MA thesis. [URL]
Epps, Patience. 2013. Inheritance, calquing, or independent innovation? Reconstructing morphological complexity in Amazonian numerals. Journal of Language Contact 6(2). 329–357. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Epps, Patience, Claire Bowern, Cynthia A. Hansen, Jane H. Hill & Jason Zentz. 2012. On numeral complexity in hunter-gatherer languages. Linguistic Typology 16(1). 41–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Bethwyn. 2009. Beyond pronouns: Further evidence for South Bougainville. In Bethwyn Evans (ed.), Discovering history through language: Papers in honour of Malcolm Ross (PL-605), 73–101. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [URL]
Foley, William A. 2005. Linguistic prehistory in the Sepik-Ramu Basin. In Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Jack Golson & Robin Hide (eds.), Papuan pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples (PL-572), 109–144. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [URL]
2018a. The languages of the Sepik-Ramu basin and environs. In Bill Palmer (ed.), The languages and linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A comprehensive guide, 197–431. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018b. The languages of northwest New Guinea. In Bill Palmer (ed.), The languages and linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A comprehensive guide, 433–567. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fortune, Reo F. 1942. Arapesh (Publications of the American Ethnological Society 19). New York: J. J. Augustin.Google Scholar
Galis, Klaas Wilhelm. 1955. Talen en dialecten van Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea [Languages and dialects of Dutch New Guinea]. Tijdschrift Nieuw-Guinea 161. 109–118, 134–145, 161–178.Google Scholar
Gil, David. 2015. The Mekong-Mamberamo linguistic area. In N. J. Enfield & Bernard Comrie (eds.), The languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The state of the art, 266–355. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gray, Russell D., A. J. Drummond & Simon J. Greenhill. 2009. Language phylogenies reveal expansion pulses and pauses in Pacific settlement. Science 3231. 479–483. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1978. Generalizations about numeral systems. In Joseph H. Greenberg, Charles A. Ferguson & Edith A. Moravcsik (eds.), Universals of human language, volume 3: Word structure, 249–295. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Greenhill, Simon J., Robert Blust & Russell D. Gray. 2008. The Austronesian basic vocabulary database: From bioinformatics to lexomics. Evolutionary Bioinformatics 41. 271–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hammarström, Harald. 2008. Complexity in numeral systems with an investigation into pidgins and creoles. In Matti Miestamo, Kaius Sinnemäki & Fred Karlsson (eds.), Language complexity: Typology, contact, change (Studies in Language Companion Series 94), 287–304. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010. Rarities in numeral systems. In Jan Wohlgemuth & Michael Cysouw (eds.), Rethinking universals: How rarities affect linguistic theory (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology 45), 11–60. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hammarström, Harald, Robert Forkel, Martin Haspelmath & Sebastian Bank. 2022. Glottolog 4.6. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holton, Gary & Marian Klamer. 2018. The Papuan languages of East Nusantara and the Bird’s Head. In Bill Palmer (ed.), The languages and linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A comprehensive guide, 569–640. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hull, Geoffrey. 2004. The Papuan languages of Timor. Estudos de Línguas e Culturas de Timor Leste / Studies in Languages and Cultures of East Timor 61. 23–99.Google Scholar
Kaiping, Gereon A., Owen Edwards & Marian Klamer. 2019. LexiRumah 3.0.0. Leiden: Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. [URL]
Kamholz, David. 2014. Austronesians in Papua: Diversification and change in South Halmahera-West New Guinea. Berkeley: University of California at Berkeley dissertation. [URL]
Laycock, Donald C. 1962. The Ndu language family (Sepik District, New Guinea). Canberra: Australian National University dissertation. [URL]
1967a. Notebook C6. Selected research papers of Don Laycock on languages in Papua New Guinea. Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC). DOI logo
1967b. Notebook C9. [rest same as above]Google Scholar
1967c. Notebook C11. [rest same as above]Google Scholar
1971a. Notebook D21. [rest same as above]Google Scholar
1971b. Notebook D34. [rest same as above]Google Scholar
1975. Observations on number systems and semantics. In Stephen A. Wurm (ed.), New Guinea area languages and language study, volume 1: Papuan languages and the New Guinea linguistic scene (PL-C38), 219–233. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [URL]
Lean, Glendon A. 1986a. Counting systems of Papua New Guinea, volume 7: Central Province. Draft edition. Port Moresby: Department of Mathematics, Papua New Guinea University of Technology.Google Scholar
Levy, Catherine. 2002. A tentative description of Awar phonology and morphology (Lower Ramu family, Papua New Guinea). Brussels: Université Libre de Bruxelles dissertation. [URL]
Li, Paul Jen-Kuei. 2006. Numerals in Formosan languages. Oceanic Linguistics 45(1): 133–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lipson, Mark, Pontus Skoglund, Matthew Spriggs, Frederique Valentin, Stuart Bedford, Richard Shing … David Reich. 2018. Population turnover in Remote Oceania shortly after initial settlement. Current Biology 28(7). 1157–1165. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lynch, John. 2009. At sixes and sevens: The development of numeral systems in Vanuatu and New Caledonia. In Bethwyn Evans (ed.), Discovering history through language: Papers in honour of Malcolm Ross (PL-605), 391–411. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [URL]
Lynch, John, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley. 2002. The Oceanic languages. Richmond: Curzon Press.Google Scholar
Nekitel, Otto. 1985. Sociolinguistic aspects of Abu’, a Papuan language of the Sepik area, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Australian National University dissertation. [URL]
Owens, Kay & Glendon Lean. 2018. History of number: Evidence from Papua New Guinea and Oceania (History of Mathematics Education). Cham, Switzerland: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Palmer, Bill. 2018. Language families of the New Guinea Area. In Bill Palmer (ed.), The languages and linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A comprehensive guide, 1–19. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Parrish, David. 1989. The Bore grammar essentials: Calibration of the Bore language. Madang: Pioneer Bible Translators. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Pawley, Andrew. 2005. The chequered career of the Trans New Guinea hypothesis: Recent research and its implications. In Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Jack Golson & Robin Hide (eds.), Papuan pasts: Cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan-speaking peoples (PL-572), 67–107. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [URL]
. 2006. Explaining the aberrant Austronesian languages of southeast Melanesia. 150 years of debate. Journal of the Polynesian Society 115(3). 215–258. [URL]
Pawley, Andrew & Harald Hammarström. 2018. The Trans New Guinea family. In Bill Palmer (ed.), The languages and linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A comprehensive guide, 21–195. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plank, Frans. 2009. Senary summary so far. Linguistic Typology 13(2). 337–345. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Posth, Cosimo, Kathrin Nägele, Heidi Colleran, Frédérique Valentin, Stuart Bedford, Kaitip W. Kami … Adam Powell. 2018. Language continuity despite population replacement in Remote Oceania. Nature Ecology and Evolution 2(4). 731–740. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rascher, P. Matthäus. 1904. Grundregeln der Bainingsprache. Mittheilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen an der Königlichen Friedrich Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin 71. 31–85.Google Scholar
Ray, Sidney H. 1907. Reports of the Cambridge anthropological expedition to Torres Straits, volume III: Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1919. The languages of Northern Papua. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 491. 317–341. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1938. The languages of the Eastern and South-Eastern Division of Papua. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 681. 153–208. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reesink, Ger & Michael Dunn. 2018. Contact phenomena in Austronesian and Papuan languages. In Bill Palmer (ed.), The languages and linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A comprehensive guide, 939–985. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reid, Lawrence A. 1994. Possible non-Austronesian lexical elements in Philippine Negrito languages. Oceanic Linguistics 33(1). 37–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, Malcolm. 2012. In defense of Nuclear Austronesian (and against Tsouic). Language and Linguistics 13(6). 1253–1330. [URL]
. 2014. Proto-Madang. In Simon Greenhill (ed.), TransNewGuinea.org: A database of the languages of New Guinea. [URL]
. forthcoming a. Counting: Numerals and classifiers. In Malcolm Ross, Andrew Pawley & Meredith Osmond (eds.), The lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The culture and environment of ancestral Oceanic society, volume 6: People: Society. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics.
. forthcoming b. Digit tallying. In Malcolm Ross, Andrew Pawley & Meredith Osmond (eds.), The lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The culture and environment of ancestral Oceanic society, volume 6: People: Society. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics.
Rzymski, Christoph, Tiago Tresoldi, Simon J. Greenhill, Mei-Shin Wu, Nathanael E. Schweikhard, Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm … Johann-Mattis List. 2020. The database of cross-linguistic colexifications, reproducible analysis of cross-linguistic polysemies. Scientific Data 7(13). 1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sagart, Laurent. 2004. The higher phylogeny of Austronesian and the position of Tai-Kadai. Oceanic Linguistics 43(2). 411–444. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Salzmann, Zdenĕk. 1950. A method for analyzing numerical systems. WORD 6(1). 78–83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schapper, Antoinette. 2015. Wallacea, a linguistic area. Archipel 901. 99–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2020. Linguistic Melanesia. In Evangelia Adamou & Yaron Matras (eds.), The Routledge handbook of language contact, 480–502. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schapper, Antoinette & Harald Hammarström. 2013. Innovative numerals in Malayo-Polynesian languages outside of Oceania. Oceanic Linguistics 52(2). 423–456. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schapper, Antoinette & Marian Klamer. 2017. Numeral systems in the Alor-Pantar languages. In Marian Klamer (ed.), The Alor-Pantar languages: History and typology. Second edition (Studies in Diversity Linguistics 3), 277–329. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1899. Über das Verhältniss der melanesischen Sprachen zu den polynesischen und untereinander. Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien: Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 141(6). 1–93.Google Scholar
Smith, Geoffrey P. 1988. Morobe counting systems. In Stephen A. Wurm (ed.), Papers in New Guinea linguistics No. 26 (PL-A76), 1–132. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. [URL]
Suter, Edgar. 2018. Comparative morphology of the Huon Peninsula languages (Papua New Guinea). Cologne: Universität zu Köln dissertation. [URL]
Usher, Timothy & Antoinette Schapper. 2022. The Greater West Bomberai language family. Oceanic Linguistics 61(1). 469–527. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Voorhoeve, C. L. 1994. Contact-induced change in the non-Austronesian languages in the north Moluccas, Indonesia. In Tom Dutton & Darrell T. Tryon (eds.), Language contact and change in the Austronesian world (Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 77), 649–674. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wurm, Stephen A. 1982. Papuan languages of Oceania (Ars Linguistica 7). Tübingen: Günter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar
Z’graggen, John A. 1972. Comparative wordlist of the Ramu language group, New Guinea. Alexishafen: Anthropos Institute. Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar