| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 1998: ¥1,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000)
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| Research Abstract |
1. I obtained handwritten materials of Motuna and its neighbouring languages from Professor Douglas L. Oliver in February 1999. He collected these materials during his anthropological field work in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, in 1938-39. In this project I transcribed, edited and computerised all of the vocabulary and part of the oral text data of Motuna collected by him.
2. The focus of the project was on creating a database of the basic vocabulary of Motima. The vocabulary items were recorded on two kinds of paper cards (4,146 in total). It required much more time than I load expected to transcribe and computerise all the items on the cards. I then checked each item carefully with my native informants in Australia. It was still not possible to identify all the items, partly because I had no opportunity to check them with, older speakers of Motuna due to the civil war on the island and partly because the analysis of Oliver's oral texts, which are supposed to contain all the words found on the cards, lias not been completed yet. Any way we checked them as carefully as we can at this stage, completed a database, and published it from ILCAA. This database will be used as a basis for compiling a more comprehensive dictionary of Motuna in the foture. At the final stage of checking I used part of the budget of the research project titled "Papuan Languages of Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) : A Comprehensive Study" under the support of Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A)(2) No.12039246.
3. I continue working on the oral text data in the above-mentioned research project under the support of Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A)(2) No.12039246.
4. Professors R.M.W. Dixon and Andrew Pawley of the Australian National University gave me valuable suggestions and advice during my research.
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