School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

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    LFG and Australian languages
    Nordlinger, R ; Dalrymple, M (Language Science Press, 2023)
    Australian languages exhibit many interesting grammatical properties and have featured in LFG-related research since the earliest days of the framework. In this chapter I survey the features of Australian languages that have featured most prominently in work within LFG, and show how they argue strongly for the parallel architecture of LFG and in particular the separation of functional relations at f-structure from phrasal constituency and linearity at c-structure. These morphosyntactic features include non-configurationality and flexible word order, the role of morphology in encoding grammatical relations, case stacking, valence-changing phenomena and complex predicates. I show how the flexibility afforded by LFG’s parallel architecture, which separates c-structure from f-structure with a many-to-many mapping between them, allows for a natural and explanatory account of these properties of Australian languages. In return, the empirical questions prompted by these theoretical analyses and their predictions have led to a more detailed understanding of the intricate grammatical structures of various Australian languages, and explain the appeal of the LFG formalism for fieldworkers engaged in Australian language documentation.
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    Uncovering ergative use in Murrinhpatha: Evidence from experimental data
    Nordlinger, R ; Kidd, E (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2023-01-02)
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    Constructive Case: Evidence from Australian Languages
    Nordlinger, R (CSLI Publications, 1998-01-01)
    Australian Aboriginal languages have many interesting grammatical characteristics that challenge some of the central assumptions of current linguistic theory. These languages exhibit many unusual morphosyntactic characteristics that have not yet been adequately incorporated into current linguistic theory. This volume focuses on the complex properties of case morphology in these nonconfigurational languages, including extensive case stacking and the use of case to mark tense/aspect/mood. While problematic for many syntactic approaches, these case properties are given a natural and unified account in the lexicalist model of constructive case developed in this book, which allows case morphology to construct the larger syntactic context independently of phrase structure.
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    Why we need a gradient approach to word order
    Levshina, N ; Namboodiripad, S ; Allassonniere-Tang, M ; Kramer, M ; Talamo, L ; Verkerk, A ; Wilmoth, S ; Rodriguez, GG ; Gupton, TM ; Kidd, E ; Liu, Z ; Naccarato, C ; Nordlinger, R ; Panova, A ; Stoynova, N (DE GRUYTER MOUTON, 2023-07-26)
    Abstract This article argues for a gradient approach to word order, which treats word order preferences, both within and across languages, as a continuous variable. Word order variability should be regarded as a basic assumption, rather than as something exceptional. Although this approach follows naturally from the emergentist usage-based view of language, we argue that it can be beneficial for all frameworks and linguistic domains, including language acquisition, processing, typology, language contact, language evolution and change, and formal approaches. Gradient approaches have been very fruitful in some domains, such as language processing, but their potential is not fully realized yet. This may be due to practical reasons. We discuss the most pressing methodological challenges in corpus-based and experimental research of word order and propose some practical solutions.
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    Bridging Australian Indigenous language learner’s guides with SLA materials development frameworks
    Chiang, Y-T ; Zhao, Y ; Nordlinger, R (Taylor and Francis Group, 2022)
    The learner’s guide (LG) is a genre of pedagogical materials for Australian Indigenous languages, but LGs developed by field linguists are often questioned regarding their capacity to effectively facilitate language learning and, eventually, language revitalisation. This reflects a gap in the literature where applied linguistics perspectives are limited in Indigenous language studies, and vice versa. This study aims to address this gap by examining nine existing LGs published over the past four decades using a modified framework based on Tomlinson’s guidelines for second language acquisition (SLA) materials development. Findings show that the LGs are designed based on one of the three model types: (1) Type 1: non-communicative grammar-based, (2) Type 2: practice-integrated grammar-based, and (3) Type 3: text-driven meaning-based, among which the text-driven model has, theoretically speaking, the best potential to achieve pedagogical purposes. Yet, in general, existing LGs likely fail to equip learners with communicative competence. Other issues of greater complexity are also raised, including material comprehensibility and limited resources. A critical implication for the field is the necessity of empirical needs analyses for future LG development.
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    The Typology of Reciprocal Constructions
    Nordlinger, R (Annual Reviews, 2023-01-17)
    Reciprocal constructions involve a complex mapping of semantics onto morphosyntax, requiring multiple propositions to be overlaid onto a single clause and the permutation of semantic roles within the set of participants involved. This complexity challenges the standard processes relating predicates to situations, and thus languages arrive at a great diversity of solutions for how reciprocal situations are encoded within a single clausal structure. Recent typological work has showcased this diversity from different perspectives, but further work is needed to determine how different morphosyntactic and semantic properties interact and what implicational connections and correlations exist with other parts of the linguistic system. Theoretical typologies highlight the importance of reciprocal constructions for our understanding of grammatical structure crosslinguistically.
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    Prosodic phrasing, pitch range and word order variation in Murrinhpatha
    Fletcher, J ; Kidd, E ; Stoakes, H ; Nordlinger, R ; Rosey, B (ASSTA, 2022)
    Like many Indigenous Australian languages, Murrinhpatha has flexible word order with no apparent configurational syntax. We analyzed an experimental corpus of Murrinhpatha utterances for associations between different thematic role orders, intonational phrasing patterns and pitch downtrends. We found that initial constituents (Agents or Patients) tend to carry the highest pitch targets (HiF0), followed by patterns of downstep and declination. Sentence-final verbs always have lower Hif0 values than either initial or medial Agents or Patients. Thematic role order does not influence intonational patterns, with the results suggesting that Murrinhpatha has positional prosody, although final nominals can disrupt global pitch downtrends regardless of thematic role.
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    Sentence planning and production in Murrinhpatha, an Australian 'free word order' language
    Nordlinger, R ; Rodriguez, GG ; Kidd, E (Linguistic Society of America, 2022-06-01)
    Psycholinguistic theories are based on a very small set of unrepresentative languages, so it is as yet unclear how typological variation shapes mechanisms supporting language use. In this article we report the first on-line experimental study of sentence production in an Australian free word order language: Murrinhpatha. Forty-six adult native speakers of Murrinhpatha described a series of unrelated transitive scenes that were manipulated for humanness (±human) in the agent and patient roles while their eye movements were recorded. Speakers produced a large range of word orders, consistent with the language having flexible word order, with variation significantly influenced by agent and patient humanness. An analysis of eye movements showed that Murrinhpatha speakers’ first fixation on an event character did not alone determine word order; rather, early in speech planning participants rapidly encoded both event characters and their relationship to each other. That is, they engaged in relational encoding, laying down a very early conceptual foundation for the word order they eventually produced. These results support a weakly hierarchical account of sentence production and show that speakers of a free word order language encode the relationships between event participants during earlier stages of sentence planning than is typically observed for languages with fixed word orders.
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    Category Clustering and Morphological Learning
    Mansfield, J ; Saldana, C ; Hurst, P ; Nordlinger, R ; Stoll, S ; Bickel, B ; Perfors, A (WILEY, 2022-02)
    Inflectional affixes expressing the same grammatical category (e.g., subject agreement) tend to appear in the same morphological position in the word. We hypothesize that this cross-linguistic tendency toward category clustering is at least partly the result of a learning bias, which facilitates the transmission of morphology from one generation to the next if each inflectional category has a consistent morphological position. We test this in an online artificial language experiment, teaching adult English speakers a miniature language consisting of noun stems representing shapes and suffixes representing the color and number features of each shape. In one experimental condition, each suffix category has a fixed position, with color in the first position and number in the second position. In a second condition, each specific combination of suffixes has a fixed order, but some combinations have color in the first position, and some have number in the first position. In a third condition, suffixes are randomly ordered on each presentation. While the language in the first condition is consistent with the category clustering principle, those in the other conditions are not. Our results indicate that category clustering of inflectional affixes facilitates morphological learning, at least in adult English speakers. Moreover, we found that languages that violate category clustering but still follow fixed affix ordering patterns are more learnable than languages with random ordering. Altogether, our results provide evidence for individual biases toward category clustering; we suggest that this bias may play a causal role in shaping the typological regularities in affix order we find in natural language.
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    Wambaya, Gudanji, Binbinka and Ngarnka Plants and Animals: Aboriginal biocultural knowledge from Gulf of Carpentaria and the Barkly Tablelands, north Australia.
    Grueman, MN ; Nimara, MN ; Hogan, MB ; O'Keefe, PB ; Mawson, PY ; Baker, KB ; Warnbiyaji, PJ ; Hubbard, LN ; Maanula, GJ ; Heath, J ; Nordlinger, R ; Wightman, G (Tennant Creek: Department of Environment, Parks and Water Security & Papulu Apparr-kari Aboriginal Corporation, 2021)