School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

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    Materials on Golin: grammar, texts and dictionary
    Evans, Nick ; Besold, Jutta ; STOAKES, HYWEL ; Lee, Alan ; LOUGHNANE, ROBYN ; ROSS, BELINDA ; Brown, Kate (The Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, The University of Melbourne, 2005-04)
    Golin is a language spoken in the Simbu (Chimbu) region of Papua New Guinea. This publication consists of a selection of articles, texts and a dictionary. This was as part of the Linguistic Field Methods Subject presented by Prof. Nick Evans at The University of Melbourne, first semester 2003.This book is divided ito three parts, language analysis; a collection of texts and a small dictionary, The analysis offers insights into different aspects of the Golin language such as tonal phonology, verb morphology, and clause structure. The texts in the second part are short narratives where Kia (our language informant), recalls past experiences. The small dictionary contains about 600 entries.
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    Searching for meaning in the library of Babel: field semantics and problems of digital archiving
    EVANS, N. ; SASSE, P. (Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Project (School of Oriental and African Studies), 2007)
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    Standing up  your mind: Remembering in Dalabon
    EVANS, N (Benjamins - John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2007)
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    Insubordination and its uses
    EVANS, N. (Oxford University Press, 2007)
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    Mundari: The myth of a language without word classes
    Evans, N ; Osada, T (Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2005-12-01)
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    Valency mismatches and the coding of reciprocity in Australian languages
    EVANS, N ; Gaby, ; NORDLINGER, R (Walter de Gruyter, 2007)
    Reciprocals are characterized by a crossover of thematic roles within a single clause. So, in John and Mary wash each other, each of John and Mary is both washer and washed, both agent and patient. The competing pressures to distinguish and merge the reciprocating argument(s) are resolved by different languages in complex and illuminating ways which often create special argument configurations not found in other clause types. While some languages either encode reciprocals by clearly bivalent, transitive clauses (like Warlpiri or English), or clearly monovalent, intransitive clauses (like Wambaya or Yukulta), other languages adopt a mixed or apparently ambivalent solution.In this paper, based on an extensive sample of Australian languages, we develop a typology of apparent valency/transitivity mismatches in reciprocal constructions including: (a) monovalent clauses with a single ergative NP; (b) mismatches between case marking and the number of arguments encoded on auxiliaries or by pronominal affixes to the verb; (c) the use of ergative marking on secondary predicates and instrumentals with a nominative subject; and (d) complex clause constructions sensitive to valency. Such mismatches, we argue, result from an ‘overlay problem’ by which both divalent and monovalent predicates in the semantic representation of prototypical reciprocal scenes have had a hand in shaping the morphosyntax of reciprocal constructions through grammaticalization.
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    Big words, small phrases: Mismatches between pause units and the polysynthetic word in Dalabon
    EVANS, N ; FLETCHER, J ; ROSS, BB (Mouton de Gruyter, 2008)
    This article uses instrumental data from natural speech to examine the phenomenon of pause placement within the verbal word in Dalabon, a polysynthetic Australian language of Arnhem Land. Though the phenomenon is incipient and in two sample texts occurs in only around 4% of verbs, there are clear possibilities for interrupting the grammatical word by pause after the pronominal prefix and some associated material at the left edge, though these within-word pauses are significantly shorter, on average, than those between words. Within-word pause placement is not random, but is restricted to certain affix boundaries; it requires that the paused-after material be at least dimoraic, and that the remaining material in the verbal word be at least disyllabic. Bininj Gun-wok, another polysynthetic language closely related to Dalabon, does not allow pauses to interrupt the verbal word, and the Dalabon development appears to be tied up with certain morphological innovations that have increased the proportion of closed syllables in the pronominal prefix zone of the verb. Though only incipient and not yet phonologized, pause placement in Dalabon verbs suggests a phonology-driven route by which polysynthetic languages may ultimately become less morphologically complex by fracturing into smaller units.
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