This paper introduces Kode Papua, a hitherto undescribed sign language, whose most remarkable feature is that it is used not only by deaf individuals but also by most or all hearing people across the western half of the island of New Guinea. The paper begins with an account of the settings in which Kode Papua is used, and then provides a brief sketch of selected lexical, grammatical and phonological properties, with reference to a short naturalistic text. Following this, the paper presents the results of a large-scale comprehension experiment showing that (i) sociolinguistically, Kode Papua is understood equally well by hearing people regardless of whether they are in regular contact with a deaf person, and (ii) geographically, it is limited in its range to New Guinea, with comprehension dropping off substantially in other parts of Indonesia, and even further in more distant locations. Next, the paper situates Kode Papua in typological space, comparing it to other systems of communication in the visual modality — co-speech gestures, urban sign languages, village sign languages, homesign, and others — with reference to 18 features of a sociolinguistic and structural nature. Compared to these other communicative systems, Kode Papua displays a unique constellation of properties leading to its characterization as an omni-communal sign language. Nevertheless, Kode Papua is but a more extreme case of a phenomenon that is common in non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic) societies of the Global South, namely, the use of sign languages by large proportions of the general hearing population. The paper concludes with some diachronic and phylogenetic reflections, suggesting that Kode Papua may have a history stretching back at least centuries, and that, more generally, the widespread use of sign languages amongst hearing populations may be reconstructed to an earlier stage in the evolution of the human language landscape.

The hypothesis that all languages are equally complex often invokes a trade-off principle, according to which if a language is more complex in one particular domain, it will be simpler in another different domain. In this paper, we use data from WALS to test the existence of a trade-off between two specific domains: morphology and syntax. Contrary to widespread views, we did not find a negative correlation between these two language domains, but in fact a positive correlation. At the same time, this positive correlation seems to be driven by some language families, and it disappears when one considers purely morphological and purely syntactic features only. We discuss these findings in relation to ongoing research about language complexity, and in particular, the effects of factors external to language on linguistic structure.

This paper presents a general survey of borrowing within the Malayic language family, in which both the source and the recipient languages are either varieties of Malay/Indonesian, or other closely-related Malayic languages. The survey provides empirical evidence for a generalization governing the directionality of borrowing, specifying that the donor variety tends to be higher than the recipient variety on a scale of exotericity, making reference to a set of features of a broadly sociolinguistic nature. In terms of a sociolinguistically-based typology of Malayic varieties, the most frequent instances of borrowing within Malayic are from Standard Malay and Indonesian into koin & eacute; varieties and traditional dialects, as well as from koin & eacute; varieties into traditional dialects.

Traditionally, many researchers have supported a uniformitarian view whereby all languages are of roughly equal complexity, facilitated by internal trade-offs between complexity at different levels, such as morphology and syntax. The extent to which the speakers’ societies influence the trade-offs has not been well studied. In this paper, we focus on morphology and syntax, and report significant correlations between specific linguistic and societal features, in particular those relating to exoteric (open) vs. esoteric (close-knit) society types, characterizable in terms of population size, mobility, communication across distances, etc. We conduct an exhaustive quantitative analysis drawing upon WALS, D-Place, Ethnologue and Glottolog, finding some support for our hypothesis that languages spoken by exoteric societies tend towards more complex syntaxes, while languages spoken by esoteric societies tend towards more complex morphologies.

This paper is concerned with the documentation, typology and diachrony of a single inflectional paradigm expressing inalienable attributive possession in Roon, a language of the South Halmahera West New Guinea subgroup of Austronesian. The paradigm in question exhibits a substantial amount of variation both within and across speakers. Formally, the paradigm is exceptional in that, in some of its variants, it makes use of an H toneme, the only attested usage of tonality in the entire language. Functionally, the paradigm is remarkable in that, in some of its variants, the possessor is distinguished not for person but rather for distal deixis. Historically, the H toneme forming part of the paradigm is argued to derive from the grammaticalization of a High Extended Intonation contour expressing excessivity along a scalar dimension, characteristic of many languages of New Guinea and Australia. In some languages of North West New Guinea, this intonation contour anchors to certain particles, resulting in ideophones such as the Papuan Malay eeeH. One such ideophone, it is suggested, was subsequently incorporated into the expression of inalienable attributive possession in Roon. The proposed analysis thus provides a case study of how intonation may develop into tone, and, more generally, how gesture may be incorporated into grammar.

This paper proposes a typology of compositionality as manifest in human language and animal communication. At the heart of the typology is a distinction between bare compositionality, in which the meaning of a complex expression is determined solely by the meanings of its constituents, and constructional compositionality, in which the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituents and also by various aspects of its structure. Bare and constructional compositionality may be observed in human language as well as in various animal communication systems, including primates and birds. Architecturally, bare compositionality provides the foundations for constructional compositionality, while phylogenetically, bare compositionality is a potential starting point for the evolution of constructional compositionality in animal communication and human language.

How do we conjure up novel and unfamiliar entities in our imagination? Thomas Ward and others have suggested that we do so by deriving such entities from ordinary familiar ones. Hybrids, however, pose a challenge to this view since they are not derived from any one single familiar entity. Nevertheless, we argue here that the construction of hybrid entities is indeed governed by principles forming part of our structured imagination. These principles refer to a set of five abstract schemas, defined in terms of properties such as parts, symmetry, and spatial orientation. These schemas, alongside the absence of a schema, together constitute a schematological hierarchy: humanoid (e.g., man) > canoid (e.g., dog) > carroid (e.g., car) > culteroid (e.g., knife) > arboid (e.g., tree) > other (e.g., sponge). When forming a hybrid out of two or more entities, or parents, the overall shape of the hybrid is selected in accordance with the following three principles: (1) coherence: presence of a schema is preferred to absence of a schema; (2) accessibility: a schema corresponding to that of one of the parents is preferred to some other schema; and (3) height: a schema higher on the schematological hierarchy is preferred to a schema lower on the schematological hierarchy. To test these principles empirically, we conducted a large-scale experiment, in which art and design students were given pairs of words denoting familiar objects and asked to draw images of hybrid entities formed from these word pairs. The resulting corpus of 356 hybrids was found to provide strong empirical support for the above three principles. In doing so, it showed how human creativity is not unbound, but rather subject to substantive cognitive constraints, constituting our structured imagination.

This paper proposes a Complexity Covariance Hypothesis, whereby linguistic complexity covaries with cultural and socio-political complexity, and argues for an Evolutionary Inference Principle, in accordance with which, in domains where linguistic complexity correlates positively with cultural/socio-political complexity, simpler linguistic structures are evolutionarily prior to their more complex counterparts. Applying this methodology in a case study, the covariance of linguistic and cultural/socio-political complexity is examined by means of a cross-linguistic survey of tense–aspect–mood (TAM) marking in a worldwide sample of 868 languages. A novel empirical finding emerges: all else being equal, languages from small language families tend to have optional TAM marking, while languages from large language families are more likely to exhibit obligatory TAM marking. Since optional TAM marking is simpler than obligatory TAM marking, it can, therefore, be inferred that optional TAM marking is evolutionarily prior to obligatory TAM marking: a living fossil. In conclusion, it is argued that the presence of obligatory TAM marking, correlated with the more highly grammaticalized expression of thematic-role assignment, is a reflection of a deeper property of grammatical organization, namely, the grammaticalization of predication. Thus, it is suggested that the development of agriculture and resulting demographic expansions, resulting in the emergence of large language families, are a driving force in the evolution of predication in human language. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reconstructing prehistoric languages’.

Metaphors, a ubiquitous feature of human language, reflect mappings from one conceptual domain onto another. Although founded on bidirectional relations of similarity, their linguistic expression is typically unidirectional, governed by conceptual hierarchies pertaining to abstractness, animacy and prototypicality. The unidirectional nature of metaphors is a product of various asymmetries characteristic of grammatical structure, in particular, those related to thematic role assignment. This paper argues that contemporary metaphor unidirectionality is the outcome of an evolutionary journey whose origin lies in an earlier bidirectionality. Invoking the Complexity Covariance Hypothesis governing the correlation of linguistic and socio-political complexity, the Evolutionary Inference Principle suggests that simpler linguistic structures are evolutionarily prior to more complex ones, and accordingly that bidirectional metaphors evolved at an earlier stage than unidirectional ones. This paper presents the results of an experiment comparing the degree of metaphor unidirectionality in two languages: Hebrew and Abui (spoken by some 16 000 people on the island of Alor in Indonesia). The results of the experiment show that metaphor unidirectionality is significantly higher in Hebrew than in Abui. Whereas Hebrew is a national language, Abui is a regional language of relatively low socio-political complexity. In accordance with the Evolutionary Inference Principle, the lower degree of metaphor unidirectionality of Abui may accordingly be reconstructed to an earlier stage in the evolution of language. The evolutionary journey from bidirectionality to unidirectionality in metaphors argued for here may be viewed as part of a larger package, whereby the development of grammatical complexity in various domains is driven by the incremental increases in socio-political complexity that characterize the course of human prehistory. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reconstructing prehistoric languages’.

Abstract How and why did Riau Indonesian acquire its isolating profile? Its isolating structure may traced back continuously through a series of increasingly large language networks – Malay/Indonesian koinés, Malay/Indonesian in general, Malayic, Western Nusantara, and the Mekong-Mamberamo linguistic area – thereby refuting claims that it is the product of a recent event of creolisation. Riau Indonesian and its relatives exhibit dual heritage: Austronesian and Mekong-Mamberamo. From an Austronesian perspective, the isolating profile developed when Austronesian languages first spread into Nusantara, as a result of contact with the languages that were already present in the region. However, from a Mekong-Mamberamo point of view, the isolating structure may be viewed as the outcome of vertical inheritance dating back as far as we can see.

I INTRODUCTION II THE MAPY AND ACCOMPANYING TEXTS 1. Phonology 2. Morphology 3. Nominal Categories 4. Nominal Syntax 5. Verbal Categories 6. Word Order 7. Simple Clauses 8. Complex Sentences 9. Lexicon 10. Sign Languages 11. Other III REFERENCE MATERIAL INDEX CV

This paper presents a preliminary and tentative formulation of a novel empirical generalization governing the relationship between grammar and cognition across a variety of independent domains. Its point of departure is an abstract distinction between two kinds of cognitive structures: symmetric and asymmetric. While in principle any feature whatsoever has the potential for introducing asymmetry, this paper focuses on one specific feature, namely thematic-role assignment. Our main empirical finding concerns the role of language, or, more specifically, grammar, in effecting and maintaining the distinction between symmetric and asymmetric cognitive structures. Specifically, whereas symmetric structures devoid of thematic-role assignment more commonly occur in a non-grammatical and usually also non-verbal medium, asymmetric structures involving thematic-role assignment are more likely to be associated with a grammatical medium. Our work draws together three independent strands of empirical research associated with three diverse phenomenological domains: compositional semantics, metaphors and schematological hybrids. These three domains instantiate conceptual combinations, bringing together two or more subordinate entities into a single superordinate entity. For compositional semantics this consists of a juxtaposition of constituent signs to form a single more complex sign; for metaphors this entails the bringing together of two different concepts in order to produce a comparison; while for schematological hybrids this involves the combination of different entities to form a single new hybrid entity. Our empirical results reveal a remarkable parallelism between the above three domains. Within each domain, symmetric structures tend to be associated with a non-verbal or otherwise non-grammatical medium, while asymmetric structures are more frequently associated with a grammatical medium. Thus, within each domain, grammar introduces asymmetry. More specifically, we find that in all three domains, the asymmetry in question is one that involves the assignment of thematic roles. To capture this effect, we posit two distinct levels, or tiers, of cognition: non-grammatical cognition, more commonly associated with symmetric structures, and grammatical cognition more conducive to asymmetric structures. Within each of the three phenomenological domains, we find the distinction between non-grammatical and grammatical cognition to be manifest in three independent realms, phylogeny, ontogeny, and the architecture of human cognition. Thus, grammar constitutes the driving force behind the transition from symmetric to asymmetric cognitive structures.

A hybrid is an entity conceived of as a fusion or inseparable combination of components associated with two or more distinct entities, the hybrid's parents. A major subtype is visual hybrids, represented in two-or three-dimensional images such as drawings or statues; e.g., the mermaid, combining the top half of a woman with the bottom half of a fish. Visual hybrids are ubiquitous in art, religion, folklore and popular culture world-wide, and have been around since the dawn of civilization. Whereas the hybrid's parents are typically well-known entities belonging to familiar categories, the hybrid itself is, or at least starts out as, a novel and unfamiliar entity whose categorial membership is not immediately obvious. We address the question whether one of the hybrid's parents is more central to its conceptualization and if so, which one, surveying a series of studies conducted over the past several years investigating the processes involved in the categorization of visual hybrids. Our focus is on the Ontological Hierarchy: humans. animals. plants. inanimates. We examine the extent to which there is a tendency for hybrids to be categorized in accordance with the parent that is higher on the Ontological Hierarchy (e.g., man-bird as a kind of man, not a kind of bird). Our main finding is that the Ontological Hierarchy is indeed relevant to the conceptualization of hybrids; however, it is crucially dependent on the medium in which the categorization takes place. Specifically, the verbal medium, when present in various experimental tasks, enhances the Ontological-Hierarchy effect. The results of our studies thus provide support for a cognitive architecture consisting of two major levels, with a basic nonverbal level of conceptualization providing the foundations for a higher level of conceptualization associated with the linguistic medium.

Isolating-Monocategorial-Associational (IMA) Language is language with the following three properties: (a) morphologically isolating, without word-internal morphological structure; (b) syntactically monocategorial, without distinct syntactic categories; and (c) semantically associational, without distinct construction-specific semantic rules, compositional semantics relying instead on the association operator, which says that the meaning of a composite expression is associated with the meanings of its constituents in an underspecified fashion. IMA Language is present in the following five domains: (a) semiotics: some artificial languages are IMA Language; (b) phylogeny: at some stage in evolution, early language was IMA Language; (c) ontogeny: at some stage in acquisition, early child language is IMA Language; (d) typology: some languages are closer than others to IMA Language; and (e) cognition: IMA Language is a feature of general human cognition. The main part of this chapter is devoted to showing how one particular natural language, Riau Indonesian, comes close to displaying IMA Language.

Many linguists maintain that the grammars of different languages are incommensurable. This poses the problem of how to compare them. One proposed solution is to distinguish between descriptive categories for individual languages and comparative categories for crosslinguistic comparisons. At the same time, it is also commonly assumed that language-internal variation can be described in a unitary manner, thereby presupposing that different dialects of the same language are commensurable. However, it is well known that the language-dialect distinction is not categorical but rather forms a continuum. This raises the question: Where lies the boundary between commensurability and incommensurability? This question is best addressed in terms of the notion of languoid, a cover term that includes languages, smaller entities such as dialects and registers, but also larger assemblages such as genealogical and areal groupings. This article proposes replacing the notion of language-specific descriptive category with that of languoid-associated descriptive category. Since languoids can be of arbitrary size, such categories may form the basis for crosslinguistic comparisons, alongside comparative categories. What this means is that different languoids, regardless of how close or distant they are to each other, may be commensurable with respect to some linguistic features but incommensurable with regard to others.