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The Structure of Inflection in Palauan

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Formal Issues in Austronesian Linguistics

Part of the book series: Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory ((SNLT,volume 49))

Abstract

In this paper certain properties of the Palauan verbal complex are examined, and an attempt is made to analyze them in terms of recent theoretical developments. Palauan is the official language of the Republic of Palau, a newly-formed independent nation of the western Pacific. Although it is a member of the Austronesian family, it is only distantly related to the languages spoken in nearby areas — the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Micronesia. It shares with other nuclear Micronesian languages a verbal affix which may be cognate with so-called Actor Topic markers in other languages: compare Palauan me- with Tagalog -um- and Indonesian meN- (cf. Wilson 1972, and references cited there). It is not the aim of this study to consider a diachronic analysis, however.1

This paper was presented at the University of Hawai’i and the CLA (Montréal). Robert Blust, William O’Grady, Ricky Jacobs and an anonymous reviewer provided me with helpful comments & criticism. Special thanks to Everlyn Belelai of Honolulu & Koror.

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Authors
  1. Mark Campana
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 02139, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Ileana Paul

  2. Department of Linguistics, McGill University, H3A 1A7, Montréal, Québec, Canada

    Vivianne Phillips  & Lisa Travis  & 

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© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Campana, M. (2000). The Structure of Inflection in Palauan. In: Paul, I., Phillips, V., Travis, L. (eds) Formal Issues in Austronesian Linguistics. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 49. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1580-5_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1580-5_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-5357-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-1580-5

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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