A Comprehensive Comparison of Lexemes in the ... - SIL International

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Chapter 2. Some preliminary results from the comparative analysis
2.0 Introduction
There are pragmatic as well as theoretical reasons for presenting the lexical
data for Tanna’s languages in one volume. Pragmatically, it can facilitate crosslanguage
communication. On a theoretical level, having the data in one volume
makes it easy to perform a comparative analysis of the lexical entries across the
languages of Tanna. In this chapter, I summarize some of the benefits I have
found by doing such a comparative analysis.
The chapter is organized as follows. In the first part I discuss the methods
for determining cognates. Here I look at both phonological and non-phonological
reasons for the dissimilarity of related lexemes across languages. In the second
part, I discuss the applications of doing a comparative analysis based on a
comprehensive lexical database. First, I demonstrate how it helps us determine
the degree of similarity of the languages of Tanna. Second, I show how it helps us
find which semantic categories of lexemes are most resistant to language change.
Third, I show how it helps us find those semantic categories which have correlates
across languages as well as those which are idiosyncratic to one or several
languages. Finally, I show how it helps us differentiate between homonyms and
polysemous lexemes.
2.1 Determining cognates
A comparative analysis allows us to determine lexical similarity across
languages and to suggest reasons why lexemes have changed over time in various
regions on Tanna. In order to begin this task, we need to establish the criteria for
determining cognates, i.e., lexemes which are historically derived from the same
source lexeme. We do so by examining two sets of reasons for the dissimilarity of
lexemes: phonological and non-phonological.
2.1.1 Phonological reasons for dissimilarity of cognate lexemes
In this section I discuss phonological reasons why cognate lexemes may
differ in form. Here, I have used the criteria developed from Lynch’s (2001) study
of phonological shifts from Proto South Vanuatu (PSV) to the modern languages
of Southern Vanuatu (see Table 2.1 and Table 2.2 below). I have updated the data
to represent the modern-day (rather than historical) phonemic orthography and
have added the data from Vaha. The PSV form is given in the first column using
IPA symbols and the modern-day reflexes are listed in the following columns for
each of the six languages.
2.1.1.1 Consonant correspondence
Table 2.1, based on Lynch’s study (Lynch 2001:201–202), shows consonant
correspondence between PSV and modern Tanna languages.