Oceanic Word Units

The project examines word units in the two Oceanic languages Daakaka and Dalkalaen. The focus is on the predicate, together with subject and tense markers. Here, there is a particularly large variation in the distribution of functions on word units. In particular, the tense marker can either form a word unit with the preceding subject marker, or with the following verb, or represent an independent word unit. This variation is not completely determined by the linguistic context, but is partly probabilistic. The project therefore also investigates frequency-based preferences and finer details of realization, in addition to contextual factors. In addition to recordings and transcriptions, handwritten texts written before the development of a standardized orthography will also be examined. One of the two languages, Dalkalaen, has hardly been described so far. The detailed study of the predicate complex will therefore also provide the first grammatical description of the language.