LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS IN MELANESIA

Dear LSPNG Members, Colleagues, and Friends!

This month, our Journal turns 50. Here are a few words from Professor John Lynch, who has been (and continues to be) instrumental in its life - to mark the occasion, and to invite your contribution to this year’s issue:

Golden Jubilee of LLM

This year is the golden jubilee of our journal: the first issue is dated April 1968.

It has been through a number of name changes. It started out as Kivung: The Journal of the Linguistic Society of the University of Papua and New Guinea. The subtitle changed to The Journal of the Linguistic Society of Papua and New Guinea in November 1970, while the and between Papua and New Guinea disappeared at the beginning of 1972. Kivung ended with vol. 12 in 1979. After a short hiatus, vol. 13, which appeared in 1981-2, was the first to use the title Language and Linguistics in Melanesia.

A major hiatus was to follow: LLM went into a deep coma after vol. 28, 1997, and was dormant for well over a decade. It resurfaced in its current electronic form as vol. 29 in 2011, and has been going strong ever since.

I have been associated with the journal since 1972, when I was a member of the editorial board. I took over as editor from Andras Balint, the founding editor, in 1974, and was replaced by Andrew Taylor in 1978, though I have been a member of the editorial board on and off since then.

I have thus witnessed pretty much at first hand the ups and downs of our journal for nearly half a century. As can be seen by the potted history above, there have been a number of “downs”, most notably the 13-year “coma” I referred to, but also other times where only two issues came out in a year instead of three, or only one instead of two, or one issue to cover two years … But there have been a number of “ups” as well. Perhaps the major one is the revival and resuscitation of the journal seven years ago, in its new form, which has been a major success. The other is the continuing production of quality papers on the languages of Melanesia, an area rich in linguistic diversity, and on the complex issue of language in education.

I wish all those associated with the journal every success as it now begins its long march towards its century.

John Lynch

CONTENTS

Brownie, John (SIL-PNG). Three-participant events in Mussau-Emira ............................. 1

Lynch, John (USP). Final Consonants and the Status of Proto-North-Central Vanuatu ......... 14

Mazzitelli, Lidia (Univ. of Cologne). Landscape categorisation in Nalik, an Austronesian language of New Ireland ............................................................................................... 26

Hoback, Brittany (Victoria University of Wellington). Accretion of *na prefix in the language of Banam Bay, SE Malekula: A preliminary study ........................................................ 54