%0 Journal Article
%A Barlow, Russell
%+ COOL, Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Max Planck Society
%T Papuan-Austronesian contact and the spread of numeral systems in Melanesia : 
%G eng
%U https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000D-7B25-0
%R 10.1075/dia.22005.bar
%7 2023-07-19
%D 2023
%8 19.07.2023
%* Review method: peer-reviewed
%X This study analyzes the numeral systems of Austronesian and Papuan<br>languages, investigating their areal distribution and considering their most<br>likely ancestral states. The presence or absence of different methods of<br>numeration has often been ascribed to contact-induced change. This can<br>certainly be seen in scholarship pertaining to Melanesia, where<br>Austronesian languages probably first came into contact with Papuan<br>languages around 3,500 years ago. Indeed, since Proto-Austronesian is<br>reconstructed as having employed a decimal (base-10) numeral system<br>(with reflexes occurring throughout the Austronesian world), the presence<br>of quinary (base-5) numeral systems in the Austronesian languages of<br>Melanesia has commonly been attributed to contact with Papuan languages.<br>Relying on a typological survey of 1,825 languages, this paper argues that<br>highly conventionalized quinary systems were probably rare in Melanesia<br>prior to the arrival of Austronesian languages. Rather, it was more likely that<br>Austronesian speakers spread lexicalized quinary systems to Papuan groups,<br>not the other way around. In making this argument, the paper stresses that,<br>while numeration may be something that is linguistically encoded in a<br>systematic fashion, it may also be realized as a cultural feature without<br>strongly conventionalized lexicalized expressions.
%K areal typology, counting, binary, quinary, decimal, New Guinea, Oceanic, Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Papuan, Austronesian
%J Diachronica
%V 40
%N 3
%& 287
%P 287 - 340
%@ 0176-42251569-9714