ABSTRACT
Although the Oceanic languages constitute a fairly well-defined sub grouping within the larger Austronesian family, as described in Chapter 1, they do certainly not constitute a typological unity. At the same time, however, there are certain patterns and structures which tend to recur over large geographical and genetic groupings of Oceanic languages. It is the purpose of this chapter to describe those structural features that are more widely distributed among Oceanic languages. We will also describe those features that are less widely distributed, but which are nevertheless found in languages spread over particular geographical areas.
