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Austronesian Undressed: How and why languages become isolating
Edited by David Gil and Antoinette Schapper
[Typological Studies in Language 129] 2020
► pp. 9–96

Chapter 1
What does it mean to be an isolating language?

The case of Riau Indonesian

| Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
This chapter poses the question “What does it mean to be an isolating language?” and addresses it by offering a case study of such a language, Riau Indonesian. First, this chapter surveys the debate concerning the viability of the notion of word as a comparative concept, proposes a definition of word as a cut-off point between two distinct levels of structure, morphology and syntax, and then follows with a definition of an isolating language as one lacking a robust structural unit of word. Next, the chapter presents an extensive exploration of wordhood in Riau Indonesian, examining 14 potential sources of evidence for word structure. Overall, the evidence for wordhood is shown to be sparse, thereby justifying the characterisation of Riau Indonesian as an isolating language and at the same time demonstrating what an isolating language may look like.
Keywords: Riau Indonesian, isolating, wordhood, ludlings
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: The challenge of orthography
  • 2.The notions of wordhood and isolating language
    • 2.1Morphology vs. syntax
    • 2.2The wordhood debate
    • 2.3Isolating languages
  • 3.A case study: Riau Indonesian
    • 3.1Riau Indonesian
    • 3.2Wordhood in Riau Indonesian
      • 3.2.1Word structure
      • 3.2.2Typology of morphemes
    • 3.3Sources of evidence
      • 3.3.1The canonical morpheme
      • 3.3.2Focus intonation
      • 3.3.3Fast speech reduction
      • 3.3.4Epenthesis and spreading
      • 3.3.5Loan form expansion
      • 3.3.6Truncated name expansion
      • 3.3.7 N- realised as nge-
      • 3.3.8Final [k] → [ʔ]
      • 3.3.9Reduplication
      • 3.3.10Pantun prosody
      • 3.3.11Sabaha ludling
      • 3.3.12Warasa ludling
      • 3.3.13Bahasisa ludling
      • 3.3.14Naturalistic spelling
    • 3.4Rounding up the evidence
  • 4.Riau Indonesian in typological perspective
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.129.01gil
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