Neuter gender in Eastern Indonesia

Antoinette Schapper*

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    14 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Gender is not a typical feature of Austronesian languages. In the insular region of Indonesia directly west of New Guinea, however, a semantic gender distinction of neuter versus nonneuter is commonplace. In this paper, I argue that this gender distinction is an areal feature that has been independently innovated several times in the Austronesian languages of the region. I further contend that this feature is likely to have developed under influence from Papuan languages possessing similar systems.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)407-435
    Number of pages29
    JournalOceanic Linguistics
    Volume49
    Issue number2
    Publication statusPublished - Dec 2010

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