Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-x2lbr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-06T13:04:58.595Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reinterpretation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2026

John Haiman
John Haiman*
Affiliation:
University of Manitoba
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A morphological peculiarity of Hua, a language of Papua New Guinea, is that object and possessive pronouns with a certain class of verbal and nominal roots are infixed rather than prefixed. This is shown to result from a combination of two reinterpretations, Watkins' Law and the analytic leap, both identifiable as instances of abductive reasoning. The Hua example is particularly instructive in showing how a change from prefixation to infixation, essentially a morpheme metathesis, could have occurred gradually, and in suggesting a systematic source of counter-examples to the putative universal that the order of morphemes in a word is fixed.

The mechanism of reinterpretation can, then, be described ; but functional explanations that have been proposed are only descriptions of tendencies—exceptions to which, though frequent, are unpredictable. The necessary motives of reinterpretation remain unknown.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 312 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © 1977 by Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Andersen, H. 1973. Abductive and deductive change. Lg. 49. 765–93.Google Scholar
Arlotto, A. 1972. Introduction to historical linguistics. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 258–70.Google Scholar
Benveniste, E. 1946. Structure et relations de personne dans le verbe. BSL 43. 1–12.Google Scholar
Gregory, R. 1973. The confounded eye. Illusion in nature and in art, ed. by Gombrich, E. H. & Gregory, R., 49–96. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Haiman, J. 1972. Ablaut in the Hua verb. Oceanic Linguistics 11. 33–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haiman, J. 1974. Targets and syntactic change. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haiman, J. 1975. Neutralization and markedness assimilation: future and subjunctive in Hua. Oceanic Linguistics 14. 119–27.Google Scholar
Haiman, J. 1976a. Presuppositions in Hua. Papers from the 12th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 258–70.Google Scholar
Haiman, J. 1976b. Hua, a Papuan language of New Guinea. Languages and their users, ed. by Shopen, T. To appear.Google Scholar
Hale, K. 1972. Deep-surface canonical disparities and their relationship to language change: an Australian example. Current trends in linguistics, ed. by Sebeok, T., 11. 401–58. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Kuryłowicz, J. 1949. La nature des procès dits ‘analogiques’. Acta Linguistica 5. 121–38.Google Scholar
Kiparsky, P. 1972. Explanation in phonology. Goals of linguistic theory, ed. by Peters, S., 189–227. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Lewis, G. 1967. Turkish grammar. Oxford: University Press.Google Scholar
Perlmutter, D. 1971. Deep and surface structure constraints in syntax. New York: Holt.Google Scholar
Renck, G. 1975. A grammar of Yagaria. (Pacific Linguistics, B40.) Canberra: Canberra Linguistic Circle.Google Scholar
Watkins, C. 1962. Indo-European origins of the Celtic verb, I: the sigmatic aorist. Dublin: Institute of Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Wurm, S. 1971. The Papuan linguistic situation. Current trends in linguistics, ed. by Sebeok, T., 8. 541–660. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Zwicky, A. 1973. The analytic leap: from ‘Some X's are YV to 'All X's are Y's.’ Papers from the 9th Regional Meeting, Chicago Linguistic Society, 700–709.Google Scholar
Zwicky, A., and Geis, M. 1971. On invited inferences. LI 2. 541–6.Google Scholar