Language Contact and Change in Melanesia

Abstract

his paper surveys the kinds of contact-induced language change that have so far been observed in the languages of Melanesia, linguistically one of the most diverse areas of the world, if not the most diverse. It then draws on this survey to draw attention to the problems that these pose for the classification and reconstruction of the history of Melanesian languages. In some ways Melanesia is typical of the rest of the Austronesian world, but in other ways it is not.