The Migration Pathway of the Proto Nuclear Micronesians：A Linguistic Trail

Over the last five decades or so, historical linguists have proposed as many as four different hypotheses concerning the migration pathway of Proto Nuclear Micronesians (i.e. the ancestors of Nuclear-Micronesian-language speakers): Proto Nuclear Micronesians may have reached Micronesia by moving from northern Vanuatu, from the Cristobal-Malaitan region, from the Admiralty or the St Matthias Islands, or even from somewhere in the vast southeast Solomons-New Hebrides region. This article provides an overview of these hypotheses, coming to the conclusion that there is no conclusive linguistic evidence, historical-comparative or otherwise, for any of the hypotheses. In view of this state of affairs, the article makes use of Johanna Nichols‘s population typology model so as to understand better the migration route of Proto Nuclear Micronesians. This innovative model has been developed to investigate geographical distributions of structural properties with a view to making inferences about human migration. In particular, the structural property of possessive classifiers, which is one of the major structural characteristics of Micronesian languages, is selected in order to ascertain how this structural property is distributed in the wider geographical areas surrounding Micronesia.Proto Nuclear Micronesians must have carried their propensity for a large number of possessive classifiers in their language(s) when travelling from somewhere into Micronesia.