Anindilyakwa

http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/8747

Title:	Enindhilyakwa phonology, morphosyntax and genetic position
Authors:	van Egmond, Marie-Elaine
Keywords:	Aboriginal languages, grammar, phonology, morphosyntax, comparative method, genetic position
Issue Date:	Mar-2012
Publisher:	University of Sydney Arts. School of Letters, Arts and Media / Linguistics
Abstract:	This thesis is a grammatical description of Enindhilyakwa, a non-Pama-Nyungan language spoken by over 1200 people living in the Groote Eylandt archipelago in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory, Australia. The language is classified as an isolate in O’Grady et al. (1966), and as “perhaps the most difficult of all Australian languages, with a very complex grammar” (Dixon 1980: 84; Capell 1942: 376). The aim of this thesis is to unravel this complex grammar, morphosyntax and phonology, and to place the language in the context of the neighbouring Arnhem Land languages. I propose that, although highly intricate, Enindhilyakwa morphology is also fairly regular and transparent, and, in fact, patterns much like the Gunwinyguan family of languages to its west. The areas of grammar covered in this thesis are: phonology (Chapter 2), nouns and adjectives (Chapter 3), verbal prefixes (Chapter 4), verb stem structures (Chapter 5), tense, aspect and mood marking on the verb (Chapter 6), the incorporation of body part and generic nominals into verbs and adjectives (Chapter 7), case marking (Chapter 8), and the genetic affiliation (Chapter 9). Enindhilyakwa phonology displays some radical departures from the typical Australian pattern, as well as from the typical Gunwinyguan pattern. However, the innovations can be traced back to an original proto-Gunwinyguan stock. Other grammatical features of this language are: (i) an elaborate noun classification system, involving noun classes, gender and generics incorporated into verbs and adjectives; (ii) an extensive degree of nominal derivation, including inalienable possession, alienable possession and deverbalising prefixes; (iii) four distinct pronominal prefix series on the verb to mark an equal number of moods; (iv) the possibility of most nominal case markers to be used as complementising cases on verbs; and (v) the pervasive use of body parts, which play a major role in naming and classifying inanimate objects.

From passing-gesture to ‘true’ romance

Blythe, J. (2012). From passing-gesture to ‘true’ romance: Kin-based teasing in Murriny Patha conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 44, 508-528. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2011.11.005.

Full paper.

Just as interlocutors can manipulate physical objects for performing certain types of social action, they can also perform different social actions by manipulating symbolic objects. A kinship system can be thought of as an abstract collection of lexical mappings and associated cultural conventions. It is a sort of cognitive object that can be readily manipulated for special purposes. For example, the relationship between pairs of individuals can be momentarily re-construed in constructing jokes or teases. Murriny Patha speakers associate certain parts of the body with particular classes of kin. When a group of Murriny Patha women witness a cultural outsider performing a forearm-holding gesture that is characteristically associated with brothers-in-law, they re-associate the gesture to the husband–wife relationship, thus setting up an extended teasing episode. Many of these teases call on gestural resources. Although the teasing is at times repetitive, and the episode is only thinly populated with the telltale “off-record” markers that characterize teasing proposals as non-serious, the proposal is sufficiently far-fetched as to ensure that the teases come off as more bonding than biting.

Also, see Joe’s publications page for links to a number of other articles and his dissertation.

Ngarrindjeri

Corinne Bannister: A Longitudinal Study of Ngarrindjeri. University of Sydney Honours Thesis

Ethnopharmacology

http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au:9080/vital/access/manager/Repository/mq:134?query=aboriginal

 

An ethnopharmacological study of medicinal plants of the Kamilaroi and Muruwari aboriginal communitites in northern New South Wales, by Qian Liu.

Pama-Nyungan essays

And, because I’m amused by this service, Pama-Nyungan essay language papers, with every sign that anyone who submits an essay from this site is likely to fail.

University of Melbourne Ling E-prints

The University of Melbourne’s Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics ePrint repository has a number of works on Australian languages

Recent work by Heidi Kneebone

• Heidi Kneebone and Peter Muhlhausler: 19th Missionary notions and practices of literacy. Soon to be available through Routledge.
• Heidi-Marie Kneebone, University of Adelaide Honours thesis. The language of the chosen view. (link goes to University of Adelaide DSpace archive, and includes table of contents).

Theses on Indigenous Studies

from the University of Tromso, an archive of Theses on Indigenous Studies, including some on language.

Carmel O’Shannessy, Language contact and children’s bilingual acquisition

Carmel O’Shannessy, Language contact and children’s bilingual acquisition: Learning a mixed language and Warlpiri in northern Australia. University of Sydney. Supervisors: Melissa Bowerman and Penelope Brown (MPI Nijmegen), and Jane Simpson (University of Sydney).

This dissertation documents the emergence of a new language, Light Warlpiri, in the multilingual community of Lajamanu in northern Australia. It then examines the acquisition of Light Warlpiri language, and of the heritage language, Lajamanu Warlpiri, by children. Light Warlpiri has arisen from contact between Lajamanu Warlpiri (a Pama-Nyungan language), Kriol (an English-based creole), and varieties of English. It is a Mixed Language, meaning that none of its source languages can be considered to be the sole parent language. Most verbs and the verbal morphology are from Aboriginal English or Kriol, while most nouns and the nominal morphology are from Warlpiri.

The language input to children is complex. Adults older than about thirty speak Lajamanu Warlpiri and code-switch into Aboriginal English or Kriol. Younger adults, the parents of the current cohort of children, speak Light Warlpiri and code-switch into Lajamanu Warlpiri and into Aboriginal English or Kriol. Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri, the two main input languages to children, both indicate A arguments with ergative case-marking (and they share one allomorph of the marker), but Lajamanu Warlpiri includes the marker much more consistently than Light Warlpiri. Word order is variable in both languages. Children learn both languages from birth, but they target Light Warlpiri as the language of their everyday interactions, and they speak it almost exclusively until four to six years of age. Adults and children show similar patterns of ergative marking and word order in Light Warlpiri. But differences between age groups are found in ergative marking in Lajamanu Warlpiri – for the oldest group of adults, ergative marking is obligatory, but for younger adults and children, it is not.

Determining when children differentiate between two input languages has been a major goal in the study of bilingual acquisition. The two languages in this study share lexical and grammatical properties, making distinctions between them quite subtle. Both adults and children distribute ergative marking differently in the two languages, but show similar word order patterns in both. However the children show a stronger correlation between ergative marking and word order patterns than do the adults, suggesting that they are spearheading processes of language change. In their comprehension of sentences in both Lajamanu Warlpiri and Light Warlpiri, adults use a case-marking strategy to identify the A argument (i.e. N+erg = A argument, No = O argument). The children are not adult-like in using this strategy at age 5, when they also used a word order strategy, but they gradually move towards being adult-like with increased age.

For copies, contact: Carmel O’Shannessy, Language Resource Officer, DEET NT, PO Box 1420, Alice Springs NT 0870, ph no: 08 89 517 006, carmeloshannessy-at-gmail.com.

Ergativity

Mario van de Visser’s PhD on ergativity has been published by LOT. It features data from quite a few Australian languages. Here is the publisher’s blurb:

From an empirical point of view, ergativity is a marked phenomenon. The
pattern occurs in only a quarter of the world's languages, and even those
languages displaying it often apply it restrictively. Former analyses have
not paid much attention to this fact, as most of them formulate a
macro-parameter whose sole function is to distinguish between ergative and
non-ergative languages. This study predicts the marked status of
ergativity, deriving the pattern from an independently motivated parameter.

It is argued that Ergative case cannot be structural. Rather, it is like a
semantic case in that it occurs on adjunct nouns in clitic-doubling
constructions. Nonconfigurational languages like Warlpiri allow for
ergative case marking because of the fact that they realize every verbal
argument by a pronominal argument (PA). Adjunct nouns may double the PAs.
In languages like Kurmanji, Basque, Northwest Caucasian and Mayan, both
case and agreement may display ergativity. This is explained by assuming
that only the transitive subject is clitic-doubled. Evidence for this
explanation is found by comparing verbal inflectional paradigms to
independent pronouns and by investigating the referential properties of the
supposed adjunct nouns.

Ergativity, then, is linked to a macro-parameter dividing languages between
those that do not allow for PAs and those that do. In languages with PAs,
ergative patterns may be further restricted to certain values of functional
heads such as I, accounting for split ergativity.

The marked status of ergativity is of relevance to both theoretical
syntacticians and typologists interested in ergativity, agreement, case,
clitic-doubling and nonconfigurationality.