Edited by Caroline Gentens, Lobke Ghesquière, William B. McGregor and An Van linden
This volume is intended as a celebration of Kristin Davidse’s work and its impact within the broad traditions of cognitive, functional and usage-based grammars. Reflecting this wide functionalist lens, the contributions develop ideas central to Neo-Firthian theories of grammar (in particular,… read more
Classification is a popular topic in typological, descriptive and theoretical linguistics. This volume is the first to deal specifically with the diachrony of linguistic systems of classification. It comprises original papers that examine the ways in which linguistic classification systems arise,… read more
This volume sets out to provide a comprehensive description of the grammar of Gooniyandi, a non-Pama-Nyungan language of the southern-central Kimberley region of Western Australia. It covers phonetics and phonology, word phrase and clause structure, and the semantics of closed-class grammatical… read more
This paper examines a poorly studied theme in Australianist linguistics, the expression of knowing and ignorance. The investigation is typological, based on a sample of 149 Indigenous Australian languages, largely a convenience sample, though most major genetic groupings and geographical regions… read more
Gooniyandi (Bunuban, Kimberley, north-west Australia), according to McGregor (1990a), has an ergative case-marker. Unusually, McGregor’s grammar does not identify a corresponding zero absolutive case-marker or case; nor does it discuss why there is none. This paper rectifies this lacuna and… read more
Most languages of northern Australia show a compound verb construction in which an uninflecting verbal element collocates with one of a small set of inflecting verbs. McGregor (2002) argues that this construction typically represents a system of verb classification in which the inflecting verbal… read more
Usage-based grammars have become increasingly prominent in recent years. In these theories usage is construed quantitatively and serves as a circumstance for the emergence and development of grammar. This paper argues that usage can go deeper than this, and may become a component of the semiotic… read more
A well-known feature of many Australian Aboriginal languages is that the same verb form can mean either ‘say’ or ‘do’ (Rumsey 1990; Dixon 2002: 121). The received story is that this represents a polysemic verb with two distinct though not unrelated meanings. Few linguists, however, have presented… read more
This paper is concerned with the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear grammatical relations in Nyulnyul, an effectively extinct language of Dampier Land, Western Australia. Drawing on research within Semiotic Grammar, it is proposed that a fundamental distinction needs to be drawn between… read more
In this paper I present some speculative stories about the development from verbs of some TAM markers in Australian languages. The verbs in question are basic and high frequency ones, including ‘say, do’, which can appear as a marker of inceptive aspect; telic, accomplishment, or activity… read more
This paper explores the contribution of missionary linguists to the documentation, description, and maintenance of Aboriginal languages of the Kimberley region of Western Australia from the establishment of the first enduring mission in 1890 to 1960. It is argued that the primary contribution was… read more
Among the well-known and widely discussed sources of case-markers are verbs,body part nouns, spatial terms (spatial adverbials and nominals denoting spatial concepts), other case-markers, and combinations of other case-markers. A less well-known source of case-markers is indexical items such as… read more
Most Nyulnyulan languages (non-Pama-Nyungan, Western Australia), show an unusual clause type, the medio-active, with the case-frame of a transitive clause, but the verbal agreement of an intransitive clause; there is no formal registration in the verb. This paper provides a detailed description of… read more
The category VP has since the late 1950s attracted a considerable amount of interest in both formally and functionally oriented linguistics, though in the latter to a lesser extent. There is a substantial amount of disagreement amongst linguists as to the status of this category, and as to its… read more
This paper investigates complex sentence constructions in Nyulnyul (Kimberley, Western Australia). Three primary types of inter-clausal relationships — embedding (part-whole), dependence (part-part) and scope (whole-whole) — permit an initial typology of complex sentence types. This paper focuses… read more
The purpose of this paper is to explore the way in which the sequence of referent events underlying the story is expressed in narrative texts in Gooniyandi (Kimberley, Western Australia). It is shown that narratives are structured in at least two partially independent ways: in terms of story… read more
The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of intonation in narrative texts in Kuniyanti (Kimberley, WA). It is suggested that intonation realizes the information structure of texts. Tone units correspond to information units. Each tone unit has one syllable that is more prominent… read more
The appropriateness of the standard practical orthographies for Australian languages, recommended by e.g. Dixon (1980:xxi-xxii), and used in languages such as Warlpiri and Walmajarri, has recently been called to question by linguists and Aboriginal users. A non-phonemic English based orthography… read more
