Topics in Polynesian language and culture history

Abstract

This book is a revised version of a doctoral thesis submitted to the Department of \nLinguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National \nUniversity, under the title Polynesian language and culture history. The thesis was \ndeveloped over a five-year period, 1 992 to 1 996. During the first year I settled upon a topic \nand began studying East Polynesian reconstructions in Biggs ' Pollex. By about mid 1 99 3 \n(Marck 1 996a) I was impressed with the extent o f sporadic sound changes among the \nestablished East Polynesian subgroups. I became interested in the idea that the older, higher \norder subgroups of Polynesian could be reexamined with an eye towards u niquely shared \nsporadic sound changes to see if any refinements in the standard subgrouping might be \nachieved. During the year to mid 1 994 I found that the Ellicean Outliers shared sporadic \nsound changes with East Polynesian and Samoan that other Polynesian languages did not \nshare (Marck 1 999), a stunning bit of support for Wilson's (1 9 8 5 ) suggestion of "Ellicean", \ncomposed of those same languages, on the basis of the pronoun prehistory. I then turned to a \nyear of work on cosmogony (Marck 1996b, 1996c) and then a year on kin terms (Marck \n1 996d). I consolidated those and other materials into the submitted thesis in late 1997.

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