Change and variation in the possessive systems of the Vanuatu Polynesian Outliers

Abstract

This paper looks at change and variation in possessive constructions in the three Polynesian Outliers of Vanuatu – Futuna-Aniwa, Ifira-Mele and Fakamae – comparing published descriptions which depict the languages as spoken some 40–70 years ago with recent data from the authors’ corpora. The grammatical expression of possession in Futuna-Aniwa reflects some features typical of Polynesian languages, which have as a prominent characteristic a binary semantic contrast marked syntactically by forms based on the morphemes a and o (Capell, 1984; Dougherty, 1983). Documentation of Fakamae as spoken in 1958 (Capell, 1962) and Ifira-Mele as spoken in the 1970s and 80s (Clark, 1998, 2001) shows that these languages do not retain this Polynesian distinction. All three languages were documented as also having a direct suffixing construction which does not occur in Polynesian Triangle languages, and Ifira-Mele and Futuna-Aniwa both have a further construction which is only evident in a few Polynesian Outliers.

Recent data shows a reduction in the number of different types of possessive construction exhibited in the languages in comparison with earlier documentation, and there is current variation in use of constructions for Futuna-Aniwa and Ifira-Mele speakers. In Fakamae, the changes can be characterised as straightforward simplification, and it has stabilised as a language with a single possessive construction. The situation for Futuna-Aniwa and Ifira-Mele shows more complexity in the process of language change. Today’s speakers sometimes mix constructions, with the original distinctions losing their value to some extent. Further, as Ifira-Mele shifts towards having one dominant construction, speakers sometimes employ more than one of the means of marking possession in a single construction. The differences in the changes in the three languages present a perspective on the pathways of change. For Fakamae, this is just simplification, but for the other two languages, with mixing of constructions, there is no clear endpoint for the changes in progress.