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

Abstract
Tanna Island in Vanuatu has five major languages and perhaps as many as
two dozen dialects. However, only a few grammar sketches and dictionaries have
been published on the languages of Tanna. In this document, more than 1,700 of
the commonly used lexemes in all of the five major languages as well as a dialect
spoken on Tanna are presented in one volume. Rather than eliciting the data from
wordlists based on the lingua franca, the lexemes have been gleaned from fulllength
dictionaries compiled by three linguists who have worked for a combined
experience of 34 years on Tanna Island. A comparative analysis based on this
lexical data has made it possible to determine degrees of similarity between all of
the island’s languages. The dissimilarity in lexemes across languages has also been
revealing, as it has shown idiosyncrasies of each of the languages. The
comparative analysis at times has helped determine whether a particular lexeme
is polysemous (i.e., having a range of related meanings) or whether the different
meanings are homophones (i.e., different lexemes that are identical in form). It
has also helped in establishing patterns of phonological changes and intra-island
migration paths. Finally, while the languages of Tanna vary slightly in terms of
their phonologies, this study has established a phonemic, island-wide orthography
based on the lexical data.
vi