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The classification of Oceanic languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

John Bowden
John Bowden*
Affiliation:
, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Postbus 310, 6500-AH Nijmegen, THE NETHERLANDS
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Abstract

This paper surveys the literature regarding the linguistic subgrouping and historical affiliations of languages within the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. It provides an overview of the evidence for the Oceanic subgroup and its external affiliations, as well as an overview of the internal relationships between languages of the family. It explores questions that have been settled to the satisfaction of most people working within the field, and identifies outstanding issues still of importance to practitioners in the area. A final section discusses a range of literature which surveys aspects of Oceanic linguistics apart from its subgrouping.

Type
Part I. Historical Perspectives
Information
South Pacific Journal of Psychology , Volume 10 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Asia-Pacific Language Research , 1999 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © University of Papua New Guinea and the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Territory University, Australia 1999

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