ABSTRACT
In Oceania, performance often packages music wi th language (figure 1), but sung words may escape analytic notice: musical researchers focus on rhythms and tones, often not underlaying transcriptions with the performed words, and linguists focus on spoken discourse, often disregarding musically equipped performances of speech. For words uttered in such performances, the terms poems and poetry are often serviceable, and terms like lyrics and texts can work i n their place. But the stylistic gap between spoken words and sung words can be wide, and many Oceanic societies have performative genres that fall into it. Acts of speaking and singing are not absolutely distinct, though they can be viewed as separate dimensions (List 1963).
