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Societal Impact Statement: Debates about the impacts of human settlement on Madagascar's habitat have missed the Malagasy perspective. Using indigenous and local knowledge in the form of toponyms, we find many regions across today's treeless grasslands are named after forest/trees, suggesting they may be novel. Where observed habitat does not match toponyms, erosion is significantly more likely at landscape scales. This suggests rapid expansion of erosion following human removal and burning of endemic forest, savanna woodland, heathland and grass assemblages. Findings also provide a timely warning: current practices may be unsustainable and may impact not only biodiversity but also human wellbeing unless urgently addressed. Summary: The debate surrounding the extent of Madagascar's treeless grasslands at human settlement is important because introduced disturbance can negatively impact the biodiversity and productivity of systems that evolved under different regimes. Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK), often overlooked, can provide information about past vegetation structure. To test whether clearance of forest and trees, frequent fires and pasture preparation have accelerated today's island‐wide erosion, we use vegetation toponyms and assess whether mismatches between these and current vegetation types are significantly more likely to be associated with erosion.Using Malagasy and Imerina linguistic records spanning 150 years, we mapped forest‐related and grassland‐related extensive toponyms in current grassland and forest, respectively. We then assessed whether remotely‐sensed erosion was more likely when toponyms and current habitat did not match.We found 316 sites in treeless grasslands, named after forest/clusters of trees, but no grassland‐named sites in forest. Globally, natural forest and grasslands both constrain erosion. Forest toponyms in grassland were significantly more likely to reflect erosion than sites in extant forest.These findings concur with palaeoecological, geomorphological, molecular and rangeland palatability studies. Malagasy ILK, hitherto largely ignored as a source of information, strongly suggests vegetation clearance and human disturbance have exacerbated the degradation of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems through topsoil loss and siltation and selected fire‐adapted, less‐palatable grasslands. Malagasy ILK in the form of toponyms highlights the need to address the negative impacts of burning and land‐clearance practices (e.g., loss of biodiversity and ecological function, decreased agricultural productivity, collapsed fisheries), given island‐wide challenges to food security and conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societal Impact Statement Debates about the impacts of human settlement on Madagascar's habitat have missed the Malagasy perspective. Using indigenous and local knowledge in the form of toponyms, we find many regions across today's treeless grasslands are named after forest/trees, suggesting they may be novel. Where observed habitat does not match toponyms, erosion is significantly more likely at landscape scales. This suggests rapid expansion of erosion following human removal and burning of endemic forest, savanna woodland, heathland and grass assemblages. Findings also provide a timely warning: current practices may be unsustainable and may impact not only biodiversity but also human wellbeing unless urgently addressed. Summary The debate surrounding the extent of Madagascar's treeless grasslands at human settlement is important because introduced disturbance can negatively impact the biodiversity and productivity of systems that evolved under different regimes. Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK), often overlooked, can provide information about past vegetation structure. To test whether clearance of forest and trees, frequent fires and pasture preparation have accelerated today's island‐wide erosion, we use vegetation toponyms and assess whether mismatches between these and current vegetation types are significantly more likely to be associated with erosion. Using Malagasy and Imerina linguistic records spanning 150 years, we mapped forest‐related and grassland‐related extensive toponyms in current grassland and forest, respectively. We then assessed whether remotely‐sensed erosion was more likely when toponyms and current habitat did not match. We found 316 sites in treeless grasslands, named after forest/clusters of trees, but no grassland‐named sites in forest. Globally, natural forest and grasslands both constrain erosion. Forest toponyms in grassland were significantly more likely to reflect erosion than sites in extant forest. These findings concur with palaeoecological, geomorphological, molecular and rangeland palatability studies. Malagasy ILK, hitherto largely ignored as a source of information, strongly suggests vegetation clearance and human disturbance have exacerbated the degradation of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems through topsoil loss and siltation and selected fire‐adapted, less‐palatable grasslands. Malagasy ILK in the form of toponyms highlights the need to address the negative impacts of burning and land‐clearance practices (e.g., loss of biodiversity and ecological function, decreased agricultural productivity, collapsed fisheries), given island‐wide challenges to food security and conservation.

Frederick de Houtman’s Malagasy language material (1603) consists of a wordlist and short prose texts. It represents a dialect spoken more than four hundred years ago in the Antongil Bay region on Madagascar’s northeast coast, which does not have a documented modern descendant. This chapter investigates Malay and (to a lesser extent) Javanese loanwords found in this material. Most of these loanwords are demonstrably old and can be dated to an era preceding the Malagasy migrations to eastern Africa thirteen centuries ago. They provide invaluable insights into the world of the early migrants to Madagascar and the degree of their exposure to major civilizations in insular Southeast Asia before their departure from Borneo. Another important aspect of these loanwords is that they hold unique information about Malay and Javanese lexical history. Finally, that Houtman’s material represents Madagascar’s oldest historiolect only adds to the appeal of these data.

Societal Impact Statement Plants and agricultural practices are an integral part of human food systems and well‐being. Here, an example of an ethnobotanical research approach is provided to increase our understanding of the relationship between plants and human activities in Madagascar, where the agricultural sector is the local economy basis. This research examines weeds of the Poaceae family, assessing their recognition and societal impacts, and quantifying farmers' perception of the Poaceae weed's status in cropping systems. A better understanding of farmers' weed knowledge will strengthen our ability to inclusively support rural highland Malagasy food systems, incorporating science with traditional knowledge. Summary Research on the perceptions and knowledge of Poaceae weeds was conducted in three areas of Madagascar's central highlands: Itremo massif, Ambohidray village and Vakinankaratra region. This work aims to identify the best‐known species and understand their roles in crop and livestock systems. Additionally, it presents detailed data on Digitaria species. The approach was based on field surveys and farmer's interviews, with plant voucher specimens and photographs to facilitate identification. Relative frequency of citations, confidence interval, and use values indexes were calculated to assess cultural significance. We carried out 111 interviews, where 87 taxa were mentioned, of which 51 are Poaceae, including 11 Digitaria species. Farmers classify the Poaceae weeds in three ways: their impacts on agricultural activities, use category and vegetative growth patterns, the latter especially significant for Digitaria. Locally common grasses are perceived as weeds when they are abundant and cause yield loss. The most damaging species is Digitaria humbertii, confirmed by half of the interviews. More than 40% of the farmers use Poaceae weeds in composting, more than 20% as fodder, and more than 8% as medicine. Overall, 67% of the species mentioned are judged useful. The diversity of useful species and the associated indigenous knowledge is important to the local communities, but, weeds are still perceived as negative generally. The Poaceae are overall neglected in Malagasy ethnobotany, and an in‐depth analysis of farmer knowledge is needed. The data obtained will be useful for future studies and the conservation of agrobiodiversity, especially endemic species that are not widely known.

Societal Impact Statement: Plants and agricultural practices are an integral part of human food systems and well‐being. Here, an example of an ethnobotanical research approach is provided to increase our understanding of the relationship between plants and human activities in Madagascar, where the agricultural sector is the local economy basis. This research examines weeds of the Poaceae family, assessing their recognition and societal impacts, and quantifying farmers' perception of the Poaceae weed's status in cropping systems. A better understanding of farmers' weed knowledge will strengthen our ability to inclusively support rural highland Malagasy food systems, incorporating science with traditional knowledge. Summary: Research on the perceptions and knowledge of Poaceae weeds was conducted in three areas of Madagascar's central highlands: Itremo massif, Ambohidray village and Vakinankaratra region. This work aims to identify the best‐known species and understand their roles in crop and livestock systems. Additionally, it presents detailed data on Digitaria species.The approach was based on field surveys and farmer's interviews, with plant voucher specimens and photographs to facilitate identification. Relative frequency of citations, confidence interval, and use values indexes were calculated to assess cultural significance.We carried out 111 interviews, where 87 taxa were mentioned, of which 51 are Poaceae, including 11 Digitaria species. Farmers classify the Poaceae weeds in three ways: their impacts on agricultural activities, use category and vegetative growth patterns, the latter especially significant for Digitaria. Locally common grasses are perceived as weeds when they are abundant and cause yield loss. The most damaging species is Digitaria humbertii, confirmed by half of the interviews. More than 40% of the farmers use Poaceae weeds in composting, more than 20% as fodder, and more than 8% as medicine.Overall, 67% of the species mentioned are judged useful. The diversity of useful species and the associated indigenous knowledge is important to the local communities, but, weeds are still perceived as negative generally. The Poaceae are overall neglected in Malagasy ethnobotany, and an in‐depth analysis of farmer knowledge is needed. The data obtained will be useful for future studies and the conservation of agrobiodiversity, especially endemic species that are not widely known. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pseudosluicing diagnostics have played an important role in wider debates about sluicing. Sluicing is the term used to describe the deletion of an embedded clausal constituent, which leaves only a wh‐phrase overt. Genuine sluicing requires syntactic or semantic identity between the sluiced clause and its antecedent, contrasting with pseudosluicing, in which pro‐drop creates the appearance of a sluice but no identity is required. The underlying structure of sluicing in several Austronesian languages has been argued to be pseudoclefts, which involve a nominal wh‐predicate and a headless relative clause argument. Both Malagasy and Nukuoro have been analysed as having pseudocleft sluicing, and on the basis of this, claims about the type of identity required in sluicing have been made. Both analyses rely on diagnostics that rule out the possibility of pseudosluicing. This paper reexamines the pseudosluicing diagnostics used for Malagasy and Nukuoro and concludes that they have been insufficiently controlled for. This is supported by data from Madurese showing that pseudosluicing diagnostics are inconclusive in these Austronesian languages. Language‐internal support is needed for such diagnostics, especially as they play an important role in the conclusions drawn from Austronesian languages on the wider identity requirement for sluicing. Three language‐specific diagnostics are given which are successfully able to identify pseudosluicing in Madurese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no consensus in the literature on the analysis of phrasal comparatives. Both reduced clause analyses, in which the standard phrase contains elided clausal structure, and direct analyses, in which the standard of comparison is a direct complement to the standard marker, have been proposed. This paper argues for a direct analysis of the phrasal comparative in Malagasy, an Austronesian language spoken on the island of Madagascar. Evidence for the direct analysis comes from the lack of overt clausal comparatives, Binding Theory, scope, and Malagasy‐specific characteristics of the standard. The conclusion contributes to the rapidly expanding picture of cross‐linguistic variation in comparative syntax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Malagasy demonstratives appear simultaneously initially and finally within the DP and must be identical: ity boky ity ‘DEM book DEM’ “this book”. We argue that the unusual doubling pattern arises from multiple pronunciation of a single demonstrative formative and not from base-generation of two independent formatives. The primary goal is to show that doubling, which has been amply discussed in the verbal domain, particularly in the literature on verb doubling in predicate clefts, also occurs in the nominal domain and can be successfully analyzed with existing theoretical machinery.