Page 156 - THE MELANESIA DIASPORA FILE CETAK ISI 10022017

them. However, there is one structural feature that can be used to distinguish them from
Austronesian languages, S-O-V (subject-object-verb) sentence order with the verb at the
end of the sentence (Pawley, 2009, Wurm, 2007).
Other features characteristic of languages in the Non-Austronesian language family
are dual structures and gender, and also a restrictive numeral system, such as counting
sequences which do not have specific numerals for words above two, for example: one,
two, then one-two for ‘three’, two-two for ‘four’, hand for ‘five’ and so on. The word
“people” (fingers in both hands, and toes in both feet) is sometimes used for ‘twenty’
(Pawley, 2009).
Determining which language family a language belongs to requires enough evidence
from the lexicon and from syntactic structure. Borrowed words are excluded as evidence
of common origins but they do show that the languages have been in contact at some
time in the past. Further, while both Austronesian and Non-Austronesian languages have
defining characteristics, researchers must also be aware that where languages have been
in contact, processes such as borrowing may have modified the original character of the
language, sometimes masking it. For example, Northern Halmahera has many Non-
Austronesian languages, but the influence of Austronesian languages there is significant
(Wurm, 2007).

Language Contact
One feature of languages is that they are in a state of constant change. This means that the
language at one point in time will be different from that language at other times. Language
can change significantly over long periods such as centuries or millennia and become very
different from its parent version. However, investigation will usually be able to reveal the
relatedness of an older version of a language with its present day form. Relatedness is
commonly studied using lexical evidence. Based on systematic changes in the lexicon, it
is possible to assemble evidence for different existing languages having evolved from the
same ancestral or parent language. Languages which have the same parent language can
be classified into the same language family or subgroup (Sihler, 2000: 135).

Lexical Loan Data
The process when one language takes in linguistic units such as words from another
language is called linguistic borrowing (Campbell, 2013, Hale, 2007). Although in some
popular writing, the admission of loan words into a language may be criticized as in

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