Possessive morphology marking owners or custodians may be used as a source of subject-indexing marking actors or agents in the languages surrounding the Bougainville region of Papua New Guinea. The Surrey Turning Owners into Actors Database encodes data on pronoun, agreement and verb structure in eight different languages: Bannoni, Halia, Kokota, Nehan, Sisiqa, Solos, Torau and Vangunu. There are nine menus for executing a search. In each case, the menu options are contained in an expandable box. These queries are independent of each other and cannot be combined.
Data on the featural properties of independent pronouns in the sample languages can be searched by selecting the person and number parameters of the independent pronouns. The results from the search are displayed in a grid containing the columns: Language, SIL Code, Sub-group, Person, Number, Form, Comments and Examples. The Examples column contains links to further pages that contain examples and commentary.
Data on the featural properties relevant to preverbal subject indexing, postverbal subject indexing and object indexing in the sample languages can be searched by selecting the person, number parameters of the indexed nominal. Preverbal subject indexing can also be searched by specifying the modal properties of the index. Results can be further refined by choosing to show all examples of the indexing type, only those instances where the index has overt morphological exponence or only those instances where the set of features values involved result in the absence of an index. The results from all searches on indexing type are displayed in a grid containing the columns: Language, SIL Code, Sub-group, Person, Number, Form. The results on preverbal subject indexing also contain the columns: Modality, Comments, Examples. The Examples column contains links to further pages that contain examples and commentary. The results on postverbal subject indexing also contain the columns: Function, Argument, Host.
Data on the featural properties of direct possession, general indirect possession, consumed indirect possession and adpositional possession in the sample languages can be searched using the person and number parameters. The results displayed can be further refined by choosing to show information about the syntactic structure, semantics or form of the possession strategy. The results from the search are displayed in a grid containing the columns: Language, SIL Code, Sub-group, Person, Number, Structure/Form (as relevant), Comments on Structure/Semantics/Form (as relevant) and Examples. The Examples column contains links to further pages that contain examples and commentary.
Data on the structure of the verb complex in different types of clause, with or without postverbal subject indexing can be searched by selecting a subtype from the search menu. The relevant clause types are: main, relative, complement and conditional & temporal. The option to retrieve information on the use of nominalized clauses or verbs in the sample languages is also available. The results from the search are displayed in a grid containing the columns: Language, SIL Code, Sub-group, Structure, Comments and Examples. The Examples column contains links to further pages that contain examples and commentary.
