Why do some Austronesian languages on the coast of New Guinea use subject-object-verb word order?

The use of subject-object-verb (SOV) word order in certain Austronesian languages along the coast of New Guinea is widely attributed to long-term linguistic contact with Papuan languages.1

While the majority of Austronesian languages in the Pacific and eastern Indonesia typically follow a subject-verb-object (SVO) pattern, those in coastal New Guinea have shifted to SOV, a structure that is characteristic of the neighboring Papuan languages. This structural change is often accompanied by other features typical of verb-final languages, such as the use of postpositions rather than prepositions. Furthermore, in some of these languages, the internal structure of the verb complex—such as the presence of prefixed subject markers and suffixed object markers—provides evidence that their current SOV order evolved from an earlier SVO state.123