In Memoriam, Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre, 1941-2007

In keeping with her standing, she was a longtime member of the international Steering Committee which oversees the organization of the International Conferences on Austronesian Linguistics, the next to be held for the first time in her native France in 2009. Apart from this major contribution, Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre's contribution to the study of phonological change in New Caledonian languages is witnessed by several other key articles, for example: "The Proto-Oceanic consonant system and the languages of New Caledonia" (1992); "Structural changes in the languages of Northern New Caledonia" (1995); and "Evolution des formes canoniques dans les langues de NouvelleCalédonie" (2004, with Jean-Claude Rivierre). For after a lengthy period devoted to the historical phonology of New Caledonian languages, she turned her attention to comparative syntax, based on the unparalleled corpus which she and her husband Jean-Claude had amassed over four decades, to say nothing of the work of LACITO linguists Claire Moyse-Faurie and Isabelle Bril. Within the framework of an agreement with the sound archive at the Tjibaou Centre in Noumea, New Caledonia, she produced a CD-ROM on Nemi oral traditions, and participated in the production of two others, one containing samples from several languages, the other dedicated to the oral traditions of Ouvéa.