East Nusantara: Typological and Areal Analyses:

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East Nusantara, the name used in the title of this book, refers to the islands of eastern Indonesia and East Timor. Nusantara is a term that has come to refer to the Indo-Malaysian archipelago generally, without reference to national borders. For the purpose of this volume, we define East Nusantara as a geographical area that extends from Sumbawa in the west, across the islands of East Nusa Tenggara and Maluku, including Halmahera, to the Bird s Head of New Guinea in the east. In the northwest, the area is bounded by Sulawesi. Some 400 languages are spoken in East Nusantara, most of which are endangered in terms of numbers of speakers, and the majority of which have not yet been described. Linguistically this geographic region displays great genetic diversity, being the meeting ground of languages belonging to the Austronesian and Papuan language families. Yet, similarities cut across language family boundaries, giving rise to the notion of a linguistic area or Sprachbund. In chapter one, we present a brief history of the region and an overview of recent research that has had East Nusantara in its scope. This serves as a general background for the chapters on individual languages that make up the rest of the volume. The strong focus on presenting new data from a range of previously underdocumented languages in the region also provides valuable input for further comparative work. Taken together these chapters demonstrate the significance of East Nusantara as a region of linguistic enquiry. At the same time, they highlight the ability of ongoing investigations, both empirical and theoretical, to help us continue refining the notion of East Nusantara as a linguistic area.