Michael Franjieh | The University of Surrey (original) (raw)

Edited book by Michael Franjieh

A. François, S. Lacrampe, M. Franjieh & S. Schnell (eds). 2015. The Languages of Vanuatu: Unity and Diversity. Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia, 5. Canberra: Asia–Pacific Linguistics Open Access. 271 pp., Aug 20, 2015

With an estimated 138 different indigenous languages, Vanuatu is the country with the highest lin... more With an estimated 138 different indigenous languages, Vanuatu is the country with the highest linguistic density in the world. While they all belong to the Oceanic family, these languages have evolved in three millennia, from what was once a unified dialect network, to the mosaic of different languages that we know today. In this respect, Vanuatu constitutes a valuable laboratory for exploring the ways in which linguistic diversity can emerge out of former unity. This volume represents the first collective book dedicated solely to the languages of this archipelago, and to the various forms taken by their diversity. Its ten chapters cover a wide range of topics, including verbal aspect, valency, possessive structures, numerals, space systems, oral history and narratives. _The languages of Vanuatu: Unity and Diversity_ provides new insights onto the many facets of Vanuatu's rich linguistic landscape.

CONTENTS

1. Alexandre François, Michael Franjieh, Sébastien Lacrampe, Stefan Schnell — The exceptional linguistic density of Vanuatu
2. Elizabeth Pearce — Completing and terminating: On aspect marking in Unua
3. Peter Budd — Move the ka: Valency and Instrumental shift in Bierebo
4. Benjamin Touati — The initial vowel copy in the Sakao dialect of Wanohe (Espiritu Santo)
5. Michael Franjieh — The construct suffix in North Ambrym
6. Murray Garde — Numerals in Sa
7. Alexandre François — The ins and outs of up and down: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages
8. Cynthia Schneider & Andrew Gray — Is it worth documenting "just a dialect"? Making the case for Suru Kavian (Pentecost Island)
9. Dorothy Jauncey — Not just stories: The rules and roles of oral narratives in Tamambo
10. Nick Thieberger — Walking to Erro: Stories of travel, origins, or affection

Journal Articles by Michael Franjieh

Cadernos de Linguística, 2021

The debate as to whether language influences cognition has been long standing but has yielded con... more The debate as to whether language influences cognition has been long standing but has yielded conflicting findings across domains such as colour and kinship categories. Fewer studies have investigated systems such as nominal classification (gender, classifiers) across different languages to examine the effects of linguistic categorisation on cognition. Effective categorisation needs to be informative to maximise communicative efficiency but also simple to minimise cognitive load. It therefore seems plausible to suggest that different systems of nominal classification have implications for the way speakers conceptualise relevant entities. A suite of seven experiments was designed to test this; here we focus on our card sorting experiment, which contains two subtasks — a free sort and a structured sort. Participants were 119 adults across six Oceanic languages from Vanuatu and New Caledonia, with classifier inventories ranging from two to 23. The results of the card sorting experiment reveal that classifiers appear to provide structure for cognition in tasks where they are explicit and salient. The free sort task did not incite categorisation through classifiers, arguably as it required subjective judgement, rather than explicit instruction. This was evident from our quantitative and qualitative analyses. Furthermore, the languages employing more extreme categorisation systems displayed smaller variation in comparison to more moderate systems. Thus,
systems that are more informative or more rigid appear to be more efficient. The study implies that the influence of language on cognition may vary across languages, and that not all nominal classification systems employ this optimal trade-off between simplicity and informativeness. These novel data provide a new perspective on the origin and nature of nominal classification.

ExLing 2021: Proceedings of 12th International Conference of Experimental Linguistics, 2021

We discuss the results of a video vignettes experiment that uncovers the variation of noun-classi... more We discuss the results of a video vignettes experiment that uncovers the variation of noun-classifier assignment in the possessive classifier system of six Oceanic languages. The results show that languages vary in their noun-classifier assignment, with some languages displaying relatively fixed assignment, similar to a grammatical gender system.

Oceanic Linguistics, 2016

Indirect possessive hosts (IPHs) in Oceanic languages are normally described as relational classi... more Indirect possessive hosts (IPHs) in Oceanic languages are normally described as relational classifiers, whereby the classifier characterizes the real world semantic relation between the referent of the possessor and the possessed. The IPHs in the language of North Ambrym (Oceanic, Vanuatu) do not function as relational classifiers but instead match several of the criteria established for markers of gender. First, the IPHs in North Ambrym act as agreement markers in anaphoric possessive constructions. Second, the IPHs are specified in the lexical entry of the noun, and a noun only occurs with one IPH, unlike a classifier system where a possessed noun can occur with different IPHs. Evidence from different linguistic experiments will be presented that support the analysis of IPHs as gender markers. The experiments test different uses of possessed nouns and show that IPHs in North Ambrym do not change dependent upon interactional contexts, as expected in a fluid classifier system. Instead, each possessed noun is restricted to occur with just one IPH.

Language Documentation and Conservation, 2019

This paper gives a detailed overview of the archived language documentation materials for the two... more This paper gives a detailed overview of the archived language documentation materials for the two languages spoken in northern Ambrym, Vanuatu: North Am-brym and Fanbyak. I discuss the speakers and the language situation in northern Ambrym to give readers an introduction to the culture of the area. The archived materials encompass five different research projects focussing on the two languages , including documentation and literacy development projects. Data collection , workflows, file-naming conventions, and community involvement are all discussed. The deposited materials are described along with overviews of the different genres, sub-genres, and keywords to enable users to navigate and discover relevant recordings.

Book Chapters by Michael Franjieh

Non-Canonical Gender Systems, Mar 22, 2018

This chapter analyses the possessive classifier system in North Ambrym (Oceanic, Vanuatu), using ... more This chapter analyses the possessive classifier system in North Ambrym (Oceanic, Vanuatu), using the theory of canonical typology and explores how the quantitative results of psycholinguistic experimentation can be applied to theoretical typology. I argue that the possessive classifier system in North Ambrym functions closer to a gender system than other related systems do, based on evidence from inter-speaker variation in experiment responses.

The Languages of Vanuatu: Unity and Diversity, 2015

This paper argues that the cross referencing strategy used in possessive constructions to cross r... more This paper argues that the cross referencing strategy used in possessive constructions to cross reference the possessor on the bound noun head or possessive classifier is a construct suffix as it does not agree in the person, number or animacy feature of the possessor noun phrase. The construct suffix is not solely a genitive marking strategy but has developed to mark prepositional and verbal objects. I will look at the diachronic development of the construct suffix and show the construct suffix spread out of possessive constructions and moved in to verbal and prepositional constructions due to a gap in the object marking strategies left by the loss of verbal object marking.

PhD Thesis by Michael Franjieh

North Ambrym, an Oceanic language spoken in Vanuatu, exhibits the two common Oceanic possessive c... more North Ambrym, an Oceanic language spoken in Vanuatu, exhibits the two common Oceanic possessive construction types: Direct and Indirect. This thesis focuses on the indirect construction which occurs when the possessed noun refers to a semantically alienable item. In North Ambrym the indirect possessive is marked by one of a set of possessive classifiers. The theory within Oceanic linguistics is that the possessive classifiers do not classify a property of the possessed noun but the relation between possessor and possessed (Lichtenberk 1983b). Thus it is the intentional use of the possessed by the possessor that is encoded by the possessive classifier in that an ‘edible’ classifier will be used if the possessor intends to eat the possessed or use the ‘drinkable’ classifier if the possessed is intended to be drunk. This thesis challenges this theory and instead proposes that the classifiers act like possessed classifiers in
North Ambrym and characterise a functional property of the possessed noun. Several experiments were conducted that induced different contextual uses of possessions, however this did not result in classifier change.

Each classifier has a large amount of seemingly semantically disparate members and they do not all share the semantic features of the centralmembers, thus an analysis using the classical theory of classification is untenable. Instead the classifier categories are best analysed using prototype theory as certain semantic groups of possessions are considered to be more central members. This hypothesis is supported by further experimentation into classification which helps define the centrality of classifier category members. Finally an analysis using cognitive linguistic theory proposes that non-central members are linked to central members via semantic chains using notions of metaphor and metonymy.

Papers by Michael Franjieh

The Republic of Vanuatu, a small archipelago of island Melanesia, is home to 138 distinct Oceanic... more The Republic of Vanuatu, a small archipelago of island Melanesia, is home to 138 distinct Oceanic languages, for which we provide here a new list and map. This updated figure, obtained by combining earlier sources and more recent information from experts, makes Vanuatu the country with the highest language density in the world, whether compared to its land surface, or to its population. This modern density is not due to genealogical diversity, but reflects three millennia of in situ diversification from a single ancestor, Proto Oceanic. This historical process took the form of multiple linguistic innovations that spread across the dialect continuum in entangled patterns, bringing about the mosaic we know today. Vanuatu’s linguistic diversity is now increasingly threatened by the spread of the national language, Bislama. The various chapters in this volume describe and discuss some of the cultural and linguistic features that make Vanuatu such a diverse archipelago.

Royal Society Open Science

Intellectual humility, which entails openness to other views and a willingness to listen and enga... more Intellectual humility, which entails openness to other views and a willingness to listen and engage with them, is crucial for facilitating civil dialogue and progress in debate between opposing sides. In the present research, we tested whether intellectual humility can be reliably detected in discourse and experimentally increased by a prior self-affirmation task. Three hundred and three participants took part in 116 audio- and video-recorded group discussions. Blind to condition, linguists coded participants' discourse to create an intellectual humility score. As expected, the self-affirmation task increased the coded intellectual humility, as well as participants’ self-rated prosocial affect (e.g. empathy). Unexpectedly, the effect on prosocial affect did not mediate the link between experimental condition and intellectual humility in debate. Self-reported intellectual humility and other personality variables were uncorrelated with expert-coded intellectual humility. Implicati...

In this study, we discuss temporal-modal distinctions in six Oceanic languages of Vanuatu. In par... more In this study, we discuss temporal-modal distinctions in six Oceanic languages of Vanuatu. In particular, we will look at how counterfactual futures are encoded in each language. We model these temporal-modal systems with a branching-time framework (going back to Thomason, 1970), which allows for more fine-grained distinctions of meanings compared to the traditional binary distinction between realis and irrealis.