Reefs-Santa Cruz languages

Infobox Language family
name=Reefs-Santa Cruz
altname=Reef Islands-Santa Cruz
region=Solomon Islands
familycolor=Austronesian
fam2=Malayo-Polynesian (MP)
fam3=Nuclear MP
fam4=Central-Eastern MP
fam5=Eastern MP
fam6=Oceanic
fam7=Temotu ?The Reef Islands-Santa Cruz languages (usually shortened to Reefs-Santa Cruz, abbreviated RSC) are a small language family comprising the Santa Cruz and Nanggu languages of the Santa Cruz Islands and the Äiwoo language of the Reef Islands. These languages were only definitively classified as part of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian family after a series of papers that demolished the three major arguments for classifying them as either primarily Papuan languages or at least heavily influenced by a Papuan substrate.

Malcolm Ross and Åshild Næss (2007) demonstrated regular sound correspondences between RSC and Proto-Oceanic. [cite journal
author= Ross, Malcolm and Åshild Næss
title= An Oceanic Origin for Aiwoo, the Language of the Reef Islands?
journal= Oceanic Linguistics
year= 2007
volume= 46
pages= 456–498 ] Åshild Næss (2006) showed that the "multiple noun classes" in RSC do not resemble Papuan-style gender systems, but do have parallels in other Oceanic languages of nearby Vanuatu. [cite journal
author= Næss, Åshild
title= Bound Nominal Elements in Äiwoo (Reefs): A Reappraisal of the 'Multiple Noun Class Systems'
journal= Oceanic Linguistics
year= 2006
volume= 45
pages= 269–296
doi= 10.1353/ol.2007.0006] Finally, Åshild Næss and Brenda H. Boerger (2008) showed that the complex verbal structures of RSC are derived by normal erosion of verb morphology and grammaticalization of verb serialization commonly found in many Oceanic languages, and thus do not reflect a Papuan substrate. [cite journal
author= Næss, Åshild and Brenda H. Boerger
title= Reefs-Santa Cruz as Oceanic: Evidence from the Verb Complex
journal= Oceanic Linguistics
year= 2008
volume= 47
pages= 185–212 ]

This concluded a vigorous and occasionally acrimonious debate in Oceanic linguistics dating from the Second International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics in 1978, where two opposing papers were presented. Peter Lincoln argued that the Reefs-Santa Cruz languages were Oceanic, [cite conference
first = Peter C.
last = Lincoln
title = Reefs-Santa Cruz as Austronesian
booktitle = Second International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics: Proceedings
publisher = Pacific Linguistics
pages = 929–967] while Stephen Wurm argued that they were Papuan languages. [cite conference
first = Stephen
last = Wurm
title = Reefs-Santa Cruz: Austronesian, but ... !
booktitle = Second International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics: Proceedings
publisher = Pacific Linguistics
pages = 969–1010] Ross and Næss (2007) offer a retrospective conclusion:

:How then did it come about that Stephen Wurm thought the RSC [Reefs-Santa Cruz] languages were Papuan? In small measure because the reconstruction of POc had in the 1970s not progressed to where it is today. In larger measure because the typological features he found in the RSC languages had yet to be documented in other Oceanic languages. And because the RSC languages had undergone phonological changes which rendered some cognates unrecognisable and led eventually to the replacement of others.

References