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Abstract: Every language has some way of reporting what someone else has said. To express what Jakobson [Jakobson, R., 1990. Shifters, categories, and the Russian verb. Selected writings. Word and Language. Mouton, The Hague, Paris, pp. 130–153] called ‘speech within speech’, the speaker can use their own words, recasting the original text as their own, within an ‘indirect’ speech construction. Or the other person may be quoted ‘directly’, just as they said it, or more or less so. One major difference between direct and indirect speech lies in the way person specification within the speech report is cast. In direct speech, person reference is expressed exactly as it was in the original speech report. In indirect speech, the person reference is shifted to the perspective of the speaker. There is a third option – a ‘middle ground’ situation known as ‘semi-direct’ speech – with incomplete person shift. Semi-direct speech often involves coreferentiality between the current speaker – rather than the author of the speech report – and a participant within the speech report. In Manambu, a Ndu language spoken in the New Guinea area, semi-direct speech differs from both direct and indirect speech in a few interesting ways. Further examples of semi-direct speech and its various guises come from a number of African languages, other languages from New Guinea area, and Colloquial English. The existence of a semi-direct speech construction brings an additional dimension to the typology of speech reports: the necessity of including the perspective of current speaker in the overall picture. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper provides a description of body part terminology used in Savosavo, a Papuan language of the Solomon Islands. The first part of the paper lists the known terms and discusses their meanings. This is followed by an analysis of their structural properties. Finally, the paper discusses partonomic relations in Savosavo and argues that it is difficult to structure the body part terminology hierarchically, because there is no linguistic evidence for part–whole relations between body parts. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper discusses properties of body part nomenclature in Tidore. As well as a number of simplex terms that refer to parts of the body, Tidore also has a considerable number of complex terms. Some problems relating to the identification of terms as ‘simplex’ are discussed and it is shown that at least one named part of the body, yohu ‘leg/foot’, does not correspond to a perceptually ‘given’, natural part of the body since it does not include the upper part of the thigh. Inherent possessor terms allow for a lexicalisation-based hierarchy of the human body. It is uncertain, however, whether this partonomy also reflects the conceptualisation of the body and its parts in Tidore. Elicitation of data that do not directly rely on the lexicalisation of partonomic relations may reveal an additional partonomy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores body part terms in Lavukaleve, a Papuan isolate spoken in the Solomon Islands. The full set of body part terms collected so far is presented, and their grammatical properties are explained. It is argued that Lavukaleve body part terms do not enter into partonomic relations with each other, and that a hierarchical structure of body part terms does not apply for Lavukaleve. It is shown too that some universal claims which have been made about the expression of terms relating to limbs are contradicted in Lavukaleve, which has only one general term covering arm, hand, leg and (for some people) foot. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper describes the terminology used to describe parts of the body in Yélî Dnye, the Papuan language of Rossel Island (Papua New Guinea). The terms are nouns, which display complex patterns of suppletion in possessive and locative uses. Many of the terms are compounds, many unanalysable. Semantically, visible body parts divide into three main types: (i) a partonomic subsystem dividing the body into nine major parts: head, neck, two upper limbs, trunk, two upper legs, two lower legs, (ii) designated surfaces (e.g. ‘lower belly’), (iii) collections of surface features (‘face’), (iv) taxonomic subsystems (e.g. ‘big toe’ being a kind of ‘toe’). With regards to (i), the lack of any designation for ‘foot’ or ‘hand’ is notable, as is the absence of a term for ‘leg’ as a whole (although this is a lexical not a conceptual gap, as shown by the alternate taboo vocabulary). Yélî Dnye body part terms do not have major extensions to other domains (e.g. spatial relators). Indeed, a number of the terms are clearly borrowed from outside human biology (e.g. ‘wing butt’ for shoulder). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]