School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses
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ItemThe Dynamics of Contemporary Pitjantjatjara: An Intergenerational Study( 2022)This thesis investigates several areas of Pitjantjatjara grammar, drawing attention to the ways in which the language varies between and within generations, and the ways that the language is being both adapted and maintained by young adults. The primary goal of the thesis is to find out how young people are speaking Pitjantjatjara today, against a backdrop of rapid social change and language contact. How does their language use differ in comparison to older generations, and to previous descriptions, and what areas of the grammar are being changed or maintained? Pitjantjatjara is one of only a dozen Australian First Nations languages that have been continuously transmitted since colonisation, and which are still being acquired by children as a first language today. Many Pitjantjatjara speakers have noticed that the language is changing and are concerned about its future. In light of speakers' concerns, which are presented at length, this thesis investigates six topics in the language: phonetics and phonology, verbal morphology, case-marking, possession, nominalisation, and negation. Each of these presents a different picture of a dynamic system in constant flux, with different patterns of variation and change, maintenance and innovation, simplification and complexification. To investigate these issues, a corpus of over 40,000 words was recorded in Pukatja/Ernabella (SA). This corpus was designed to capture spontaneous speech among different generations of women. In addition, I draw upon an annotated collection of previously published texts, from the substantial body of previous description and documentation of the language. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods is used to investigate variables and grammatical structures of interest. In some areas, such as the phonetics and phonology, there are numerous differences between generations; over a dozen variables are described. In the verbal morphology, there is variation in both derivational and inflectional morphology. This appears to be system-internal, not motivated by language contact, and shows an overall maintenance of a complex and interesting system. The syntax of case is fully maintained, although there is some change in case allomorphy, and a new, innovative use of the inclusory construction that has not been documented elsewhere. Possession is an area where contact-induced change has been reported in many languages, including in Pitjantjatjara. However, variation in this domain appears stable between generations, and influenced by subtle semantic, pragmatic, and lexical factors. Nominalisation shows significant morphosyntactic complexity, which is described in detail. Complex sentence structures utilising nominalisations are being fully maintained, with no reduction in the range or use of subordination constructions among young people. Negation is also an area with significant complexity in Pitjantjatjara, and which is typologically unusual in many respects. While there is currently no variation in negation between generations, there are some differences to previous descriptions, and this can shed light on broader questions of how negation constructions evolve. Overall, my findings do not point to a single identifiable youth variety, a radical break between `traditional' and `contemporary' Pitjantjatjara, or to any significant grammatical borrowing from English. The thesis makes a descriptive and analytical contribution to our understanding of Pitjantjatjara phonology, morphology, and syntax, pointing out several areas of typological and theoretical interest. It also adds to the growing body of work describing variation, change, and contact in contemporary Aboriginal language varieties. The findings of this thesis show the benefits of embedding the study of variation and young people's language within language documentation.
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ItemA grammar of the Lopit language( 2019)This thesis is the first comprehensive description of the grammar of Lopit, an Eastern Nilotic language traditionally spoken in South Sudan. It is based on extensive fieldwork with Lopit speakers living in Melbourne and, to a lesser extent, in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. It focuses on the Dorik variety of the language. Following introductory discussion, analyses are presented of Lopit phonology; word classes; and morphology of the noun phrase and the verb. This is then followed by analyses of verbal tense, aspect and mood; basic sentence structure; the expression of property concepts and adverbial notions; and clause combining constructions. This study shows that, in many ways, Lopit is a typical non-Bari Eastern Nilotic language. Lopit has a nine-vowel system with an Advanced Tongue Root distinction, and tones used for both lexical and grammatical distinctions. Number marking follows the tripartite system of singulative, plurative and replacement marking, and property concepts are mainly expressed with stative verbs in relative clause constructions. As is typical of Eastern Nilotic languages, Lopit has two classes of verbs and bound pronominal marking on verbs. It is a verb-initial language and the unmarked word order is VSO. Lopit has a marked nominative case system, with nominative and absolutive case distinguished by tone. Lopit does, however, exhibit a number of features which are either not present or have not been identified in other Eastern Nilotic languages. These include the ‘greater singular’, where a morphologically singular noun can be used to indicate a very large number. Lopit also appears to differ from other Eastern Nilotic languages in that there is a three-way contrast in aspect: neutral, imperfective and perfective. In addition, the marking of aspect is determined by the phonotactic structure of the verb root. Lopit appears to have a larger range of modal distinctions than other Eastern Nilotic languages, including the irrealis, the potential, the conditional and the obligative. While inclusory constructions are present in other Eastern Nilotic languages, Lopit appears to be unique in that it distinguishes two kinds of inclusory constructions, one of which has a topicalised, but not expressed, noun phrase. The detailed description of Lopit morphological and syntactic structures presented in this thesis offers valuable insights in relation to several grammatical features which are cross-linguistically rare or under-described, while also making a significant contribution to the typological and historical understanding of Eastern Nilotic languages, and Nilo-Saharan languages more generally. As the first comprehensive grammar of Lopit, it also offers a strong foundation from which more detailed examinations of specific phenomena can proceed.
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ItemA grammar of Paku: a language of Central Kalimantan( 2018)This thesis describes the phonology, morphology and syntax of Paku, a highly endangered East Barito language spoken in four villages in the southeast of Central Kalimantan province, Indonesia. It has currently about fifty speakers (conservative estimate, including semi-speakers) and since children, for a variety of reasons, no longer learn the language, it is classified as moribund. This thesis is part of a ARC-funded project The South East Barito languages in Indonesia and Madagascar: Safeguarding their past and future concerned with the documentation of Southeast Barito languages which Paku was thought to be a member of until the recent reclassification of languages in Borneo by Smith (2017). It is a contribution to the description of the rapidly declining linguistic diversity in Borneo and other parts of the world. In doing so, this thesis will also contribute data of Bornean languages to broader typological research. Like many other endangered languages Paku is virtually undescribed and one of the main aims of this part of the project is the thorough documentation of Paku and the compilation of an extensive corpus of data consisting of both narratives and elicited material. This will help create a record of the language before it disappears, a fate which at this stage seems inevitable. The examples used in this thesis are taken from the recorded materials as well as field notes. The data was collected during five field trips totalling nine months conducted between July 2013 and June 2017. Chapter one will introduce the Paku language and the people who use it. It will address the current linguistic situation and provide a brief overview of their traditions and customs. It also includes an overview of the methodology employed in both data collection and analysis and explain some of the conventions used in this thesis. Chapter two is concerned with the phonology in Paku and includes a description of the various and at times unusual phonological processes found in Paku. Chapter three describes word classes that need to be recognised in Paku while chapters four and five focus on nominal and verbal morphology respectively. They furthermore discuss the internal structure of phrases headed by nominals and verbs. Chapter six introduces prepositional phrases which can have various functions both at the phrase and clause level. Chapter seven is the beginning of the syntactic description of Paku and includes a discussion of grammatical relations and word order. It also identifies the different clause types found in the language. Chapter eight looks at question formation and chapter nine explores complex sentences. In Paku they include coordinated clauses, adverbial clauses, and complementation. The most intriguing features of Paku are found in the phonology of the language. For instance, Paku features extensive harmony systems. Firstly, there is comprehensive nasal harmony. This in itself is not unusual in the Austronesian world, but Paku has developed a mechanism of preventing nasal spread which is almost exclusively found in languages of Borneo - nasal preplosion. Furthermore, the majority of affixes are subject to vowel harmony, a feature which sets Paku apart from other Barito languages in the area and which provides valuable insight for potential reconstruction work. Finally, Paku features nasal substitution and accretion.
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ItemA grammar of Mian, a Papuan language of New Guinea( 2007)This is a descriptive grammar of the eastern dialect of the Mian language, spoken by approximately 1,800 people in Papua New Guinea. The grammar comprises chapters on the segmental and tonal phonology, morphology, and syntax and concludes with a text collection. (For complete abstract open document)
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ItemA Grammar of Kuuk Thaayorre( 2006-07)This thesis is a comprehensive description of Kuuk Thaayorre, a Paman language spoken on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, Australia. On the basis of elicited data, narrative and semi-spontaneous conversation recorded between 2002 and 2005, this grammar details the phonetics and phonology, morphosyntax, lexical and constructional semantics and pragmatics of one of the few indigenous Australian languages still used as a primary means of communication. Kuuk Thaayorre possesses features of typological interest at each of these levels. At the phonological level, Kuuk Thaayorre possesses a particularly rich vowel inventory from an Australian perspective, with five distinct vowel qualities and two contrastive lengths producing ten vowel phonemes. It is in the phonotactic combination of sounds that Kuuk Thaayorre phonology is particularly noteworthy, however. Kuuk Thaayorre’s tendency towards closed syllables (with codas containing up to three consonants) frequently leads to consonant clusters of as many as four segments. Kuuk Thaayorre is also cross-linguistically unusual in allowing sequences of its two rhotics (an alveolar tap/trill and retroflex continuant) within the syllable – either as a complex coda or as onset plus syllabic rhotic. Finally, monosyllables are ubiquitous across all Thaayorre word classes, despite being generally rare in Australian languages.
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ItemNon-subject arguments in Indonesian( 2001-10)The grammatical function subject can be identified reliably in Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian), but the same is not true of other clause-level nominal constituents in the language. The tests proposed in previous studies for identifying an object grammatical function turn out to be unreliable and inconsistent when the full range of data is considered. This thesis attempts to clarify the problem by examining non-subject arguments in Indonesian in the theoretical framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar. Both the properties associated with the various types of argument and the means by which they are licensed in clauses turn out to be problematic. Two argument verbs appear in a range of clause types which are related in interesting ways. I argue that it is possible to give a coherent analysis of the system as a whole, treating it as the basic transitive system of the language, when certain relationships are recognised as morphological rather than syntactic. This analysis also reveals similarities between Indonesian and more conservative Austronesian languages such as those of the Philippines. Another type of clause, sometimes referred to as the ‘adversative verb’ clause type shares an important property with one of the types of transitive clause, that of allowing an oblique argument to appear without a licensing preposition if it is adjoined to the verb which governs it.
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ItemProsody and grammar in Dalabon and Kayardild( 2011)This dissertation presents a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the interaction between grammatical structure and prosodic structure in two Australian languages, Dalabon and Kayardild. The typological profiles of these languages contrast dramatically: Dalabon is an extreme head-marking polysynthetic language, in which a single verb can carry all of the information typically associated with a clause in a language like English (e.g. M. Baker, 1996; Evans & Sasse, 2002). Kayardild is an extreme dependent-marking language, with syntactic relationships encoded on nominal dependents through sequences of case morphology (Dench & Evans, 1988; Evans, 1995a; Nordlinger, 1998). One of the main motivations for studying the interaction between grammatical structure and prosodic constituency in two grammatically distinct languages is that a comparison will potentially test the effects that grammatical structure may have on prosody. By examining two structurally different languages it then becomes possible to test certain hypotheses regarding the grammatical influence on prosodic structure. Whether an extreme dependent-marking language and an extreme head-marking language show similar or different prosodic structural patterns may either support or disprove statements regarding the universality of the interaction between prosodic and grammatical structure. This dissertation presents both quantitative and qualitative findings, based on approximately 75 minutes of recorded Dalabon and Kayardild narratives. The hypotheses examined in this dissertation concern whether factors such as grammatical complexity, the location of clause boundaries, discourse effects such as the introduction of new information, as well as prosodic length, affect prosodic constituency boundary location and strength, irrespective of the language type in question. Although the two languages differ dramatically in their grammatical structures, the overall interaction between prosody and the various grammatical factors may be expected to show similar patterns. In order to test these hypotheses, the relationships between grammatical complexity and prosodic constituency, between the clause and prosodic constituency, and between prosodic length and prosodic constituency are examined. The results presented here show that there is a large amount of consistency across both languages in terms of the prosodic phrasing of clauses overall, supporting the view that prosodic structure is independent of grammatical structure. However, the results also show there is interesting variation in the prosodic phrasing of constituents within the clause as well as overall pausing patterns, suggesting that typological structure does have a role to play in prosodic structure. The chapters are structured as follows: Chapter 1 provides the introduction and context for the research, with definitions of prosody and intonation, a review of the literature on the interaction between prosody and grammar, and the aims and hypotheses. Chapter 2 provides language overviews of Dalabon and Kayardild. Chapter 3 provides a description of the methods and materials, including an overview of the corpus, and the statistical methods and annotation conventions used. Chapter 4 provides descriptions of the intonation phrases found in Dalabon and Kayardild, including a description of the contour types found, the makeup and boundary tones of these phrases. Chapter 5 provides an examination of the relationship between the clause and prosodic phrasing including analyses of pause, IP boundaries, clause types, constituents and word order. In Chapter 6 some of the interesting findings to emerge from the preceding analyses are investigated. This includes the prosodic behaviour of nominals and examples of IPs which comprise multiple verbs. Chapter 7 concludes the dissertation, providing an overview of the main findings and their implications, as well as a discussion of directions for future research.
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ItemTirax grammar and narrative: an Oceanic language spoken on Malakula, North Central Vanuatu( 2009)This work provides the only description of the grammar and narratives of Tirax, an Oceanic language spoken in three villages on Malakula, North Central Vanuatu. The data on which the work is based was collected by the author during a three-month fieldtrip to Malakula in 2004, with a short follow-up fieldtrip in 2007, and regular correspondence for final fact-checking. Tirax has many features typical of North Central Vanuatu languages, such as obligatory subject-mood markers distinguishing realis and irrealis mood, ‘inalienable’ and ‘alienable’ possessive marking, a range of possessive classifiers for alienable possession, verbal behaviour in the numeral system, ‘nuclear’ verb serialisation, and a range of strategies for paratactic linkage. Additionally, several morphosyntactic processes, such as object marking and plural marking, are sensitive to the animacy of the referent. The pattern of distribution of some of the grammatical features identified in the language was studied to determine their discourse-pragmatic function. In particular, aspect markers and NP markers encoding definiteness and number arc grammatically optional in Tirax, and it is found that they are strategically used by speakers for marking prominence or otherwise engaging the hearer in the narrative. The work therefore represents a novel approach to language description, highlighting the relationship between discourse and grammar. A holistic analysis of the narratives was undertaken, studying the prosodic, morphosyntactic and discourse-semantic layers of structure. This holistic, integrated approach has revealed the existence of transition clauses, hitherto undescribed discourse structures which are frequently encountered in Tirax. Appendices include illustrative texts, a methodology for identifying intonation units, and a description of Tirax phonology. There is also a CD ROM version of this work with links to illustrative audio clips.
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ItemA sketch grammar of the Badjala language of Gari (Fraser Island)( 2003)This thesis is a sketch grammar of the Badjala language of Gari (Fraser Island), and is the result of a fresh transcription and analyses of taped material recorded by Professor Stephen Wurm (now deceased), in 1955, 1960 and 1962 with Gaiarbau, the main informant and one of the last speakers of Badjala. These recorded sessions were conducted on Stradbroke Island and Brisbane, before this elderly man passed away in 1964. All of this material was entered into a computer database, and many examples from this corpus are included within the body of the thesis. Relevant sections from this material is contained in the appendices to this thesis, in the form of sentence examples in Badjala with a free English translation, as well as an alphabetically arranged Badjala wordlist. The thesis comprises five chapters. Chapter 1 deals with The language and its speakers, referring to the historical situation, the spelling of language names, the present language custodians, and the scope of the present study. It also discusses the linguistic type of the language, its relationship to other languages in the region and previous work carried out on Badjala. Chapter 2 analyses the phonetics and phonology of the language. Chapter 3 is concerned with nominal morphology (including the case system). Nominals, nouns, personal pronouns, interrogatives, demonstratives, locational qualifiers and adjectives. Adverbs and particles are also dealt with in this chapter. Chapter 4 is concerned with the morphology and tense, aspect and mode inflections of verbs in Badjala, as well as the derivational morphology of verbs. Finally Chapter 5 examines the syntax of this language, including the main clause, the structure of the noun phrase, and the syntax of complex clauses.
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ItemThe role of task-based conversation in the acquisition of Japanese grammar and vocabulary( 1999)This thesis investigates the role of conversation in the acquisition of Japanese grammar and vocabulary items in non-native speaker – native speaker interaction. In particular, it examines the effect of interactional moves of a native speaking conversation partner on the NNS’s control over Japanese grammar and vocabulary items. There are two studies: one cross-sectional and one longitudinal. A quasi-experiment (pre-test, treatment, post-test and delayed post-test) design was used for both. The subjects who participated in the study were beginning learners of Japanese at a tertiary institution. In the cross-sectional study, fifty-five subjects were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. The subjects in the control group first took pre-tests and engaged in the free conversation with a native speaking conversation partner for 30 minutes. Soon after the conversation, they were asked to do post-tests. The subjects in the experimental group first took pre-tests and then performed three communication tasks (treatment) with a native speaking conversation partner. Post-tests were administered soon after the treatment (task-based conversation) and delayed post-tests were administered one week after the treatment. The effect of task-based conversation was examined by comparing the scores on the pre-, post- and delayed post-tests across groups and within groups. The frequency and types of native-speaking partners’ interactional moves were also investigated in relation to their effects on learners’ performance on post- and delayed post-tests. The results showed that overall task-based conversation had a positive impact on the short-term development of the targeted items. A variety of native-speaking partners’ interactional moves were observed. The effect of these moves on the development of the NNSs’ control over Japanese grammar and vocabulary items varied according to the types of the targeted items. In the longitudinal study, five subjects from the cross-sectional study participated for nine months. The five subjects met the same native-speaking conversation partner weekly for an hour and did a variety of communication tasks. Of the five subjects, three subjects received intensive recast treatment in addition to the weekly treatment after week eight. Four follow-up tests were administered during the twelve weeks and two delayed post-tests were administered one month, three month and six month after the final treatment. The results showed that the continuous treatment over twelve week had a positive impact on the development of target grammar and vocabulary items for both short- and long-terms. Intensive recast treatment had a positive impact on some structures, but had a negative impact on the structures which subjects were able to produce correctly prior to the treatment. The present study has implication for classroom teaching especially in the implementation of communication tasks and grammar and vocabulary teaching.