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†Françoise OZANNE-RIVIERRE

Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres

 

In Memoriam Françoise OZANNE-RIVIERRE

(December 13, 2007, AF)

It is the sad duty of the group of Oceanists of LACITO to announce the loss of their colleague Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre, who passed away on November 11, 2007, in her home of Montreuil.

Françoise Rivierre earned international recognition through her descriptions of several languages of New Caledonia – an area renowned for its high linguistic diversity and complexity – as well as through her contribution to the comparative study of Oceanic languages.

After dedicating her doctoral thesis to the phonological and syntactic description of the Iaai language spoken on Uvea I. (Loyalty group), she turned to the languages of the Hienghène area (Fwâi, Pije, Nemi, Jawe) on the mainland. She published two volumes Textes nemi (“Nemi narratives”), and in 1982 the Dictionnaire thématique des langues de la région de Hienghène (“Dictionary of the languages of the Hienghène area”), in collaboration with A.-G. Haudricourt; in 1984 followed a dictionary of Iaai. In 1998, she published the grammar and dictionary of Nyelâyu, the language spoken in the Balade area, in the northern tip of the Grande Terre.

Until recently she continued to make the most of the impressive amount of firsthand data she had collected across the New Caledonian archipelago since the 1960’s. Only months ago she completed the manuscript of another dictionary for two languages of the West coast, Pwaamei and Pwâpwâ.

Françoise Rivierre’s main contributions to general and comparative linguistics include her studies on phonological change and the comparative method; the genetic classification of the 28 Kanak languages; and the reconstruction of Proto North Caledonian. Initially with her director A.-G. Haudricourt, and later with Jean-Claude Rivierre, she helped demonstrate the inclusion of these languages within the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian. She also had a remarkable understanding of the intricate phonological changes in the history of New Caledonian languages, as witnessed in several key articles: “The Proto-Oceanic consonantal system and the languages of New Caledonia” (1992); “Structural changes in the languages of Northern New Caledonia” (1995); “Évolution des formes canoniques dans les langues de Nouvelle-Calédonie” (2004).

Among her many other topics of study were the structural dialectology of Fijian; contact-induced phenomena between Iaai and the Polynesian language West Uvean; the syntax of argument-marking, complex predicates and verb serialisation; the terminology of kinship; systems of space reference and spatial deixis in Austronesian languages. Following in the steps of her mentor Haudricourt, she was also particularly keen on botanics, as testified by the detailed classifications of fauna and flora found in her dictionaries.

Françoise was also an enthusiastic supporter of the documentation, transmission and survival of these poorly-known and often endangered languages. Since 2000, she was in charge of the section “Etudes océaniennes” at LACITO. She continually demonstrated, as always, the same energy, generosity and courage in the face of adversity. She will be deeply missed.

 

Research projects

  • Etudes océaniennes (resp. jusqu’en 2007)

Keywords

linguistique – lexicologie – phonologie diachronique – syntaxe comparative – typologie – Océanie – fagauvea – fwâi – iaai – jawe – nemi – nyelâyu – pije

Publications

  • 2004, Bril Isabelle & Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre (eds), Complex predicates in Oceanic languages: Studies in the dynamics of binding and boundness, Berlin, Mouton de Gruyter (collection Empirical Approach to Linguistic Typology [EALT]), 397 p.
  •  2004, Ozanne-Rivierre Françoise & Jean-Claude Rivierre, Evolution des formes canoniques dans les  langues de Nouvelle-Calédonie, Faits de langues 24 (“Les langues austronésiennes”, responsable E. Zeitoun), p. 141-153.
  • 1999, Spatial Orientation in some Austronesian Languages, in C. Fuchs & S. Robert (eds), Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations, Amsterdam/Philadephia, John Benjamins, p. 73-84.
  • 1998, Ozanne-Rivierre Françoise (avec la collab. de B. & S. Boiguivie et E. Dedane, Le nyelâyu de Balade (Nouvelle-Calédonie), Paris, Peeters (Selaf 367-LCP 12), 276 p.
  • 1995,  Structural changes in the languages of Northern New Caledonia, Oceanic Linguistics 34/1:45-72.
  • 1982, Langues de Hienghène et proto-océanien : phonologie comparée, in A.-G. Haudricourt & F. Ozanne-Rivierre, Dictionnaire thématique des langues de la région de Hienghène (Nouvelle-Calédonie) : pije-fwâi-nemi-jawe, Paris, SELAF, p. 9-61.
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