Linguistic research in Southern Vanuatu [Invited lecture]

In this talk I give an overview of what documentary linguistics is. I cover some of the key areas of the field, including many of the recent field manual tasks run by the Language and Cognition Department at the Max Plank Institute for Psycholinguistics. I then focus on why Southern Vanuatu languages present interesting problems for linguistic typology. The innovative Echo Subject construction in all languages of the region is an interesting case in switch reference typology. From a more practical perspective, I propose that the unique social practices of man-Tanna promote the use of Whitesands as a (rare) regional lingua franca