School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/11343/392

Filters

2004 - 2005 3
Reset filters

Settings
Statistics
Citations
End date: 2007 × Type: Journal (Paginated) × Subject: Kriol ×

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    The expression of possession in Wumpurrarni English, Tennant Creek
    DISBRAY, SAMANTHA ; SIMPSON, JANE (Monash University, 2004)
    We discuss the expression of possession in Wumpurrarni English (WE), a variety spoken in the Tennant Creek area of the Northern Territory. We illustrate this from a data-set of 319 utterances containing possessive constructions (drawn from 14 video-recordings of conversations between care-givers and children). We show how the WE constructions relate to those of the source languages, Warumungu, Standard Australian English (SAE), and the creole that developed in northern Australia late in the nineteenth century. The interaction between these sources in the development of WE is complex. Three notable features are examined: the use of a possessor clitic whose form is taken from Warumungu, but whose syntactic behaviour is taken from the SAE Genitive clitic, the use of a post-nominal possessor as in Warumungu, and the extension of the possessor clitic to the possession of inalienable things such as body-parts. A body-part possessor construction appears with a wider range of verbs than in standard Australian English, but narrower than that in traditional Warumungu. We show the wide variation in the use of possessive constructions, and suggest that relevant factors are the speaker’s age, code-switching, and the context of use.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Language contact interaction and possessive variation
    MCCONVELL, PATRICK (Monash University, 2005-11)
    This paper focuses on contact interaction in the development of possessive constructions. In contrast to ‘copying’ approaches to structural diffusion, contact interaction approaches recognise that internal and external models interact, often to produce innovation and variation. Some examples of this in possessive constructions from early English and pidgins and creoles are explored, including the question of ‘for’ and its equivalents becoming postposed including in Australian Creoles. Two theories of how adoption of structures from external sources can be staged and modified, that of Carol Myers-Scotton (the 4-M Model) and Ross’s Metatypy model are compared with examples from possessives, as well as Aikhenvald’s treatment of possessive construction diffusion in the Amazon. There appears to be common ground between these approaches, and the contact interaction approach in general.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Possessing variation: age and inalienability related variables in the possessive constructions of two Australian mixed languages
    Meakins, Felicity ; O'SHANNESSY, CARMEL (Monash University, 2005-11)
    The paper examines attributive possessive constructions in two north Australian mixed languages, Gurindji Kriol (GK) and Light Warlpiri (LW). In both languages possessive constructions are drawn from the source languages, Gurindji, Warlpiri, Kriol and English, and there is variation within and between languages. The range of possessive forms available in the two languages are presented and factors contributing to the variation within each language are discussed, including age of speaker, the remnants of an in/alienability distinction, and the source language of possessive forms and head NPs.