School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

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    Reciprocal Constructions in English: each other and beyond
    HURST, PETER ; NORDLINGER, RACHEL ( 2007)
    In this paper we investigate the constructions that are used to encode reciprocal situations in English, based on responses to the 64 reciprocals videoclips developed for the Reciprocals Across Languages project (Evans, Levinson, Enfield, Gaby and Majid 2004). This work complements the extensive body of previous research on English reciprocals by focusing on spoken data. While our data supports the traditional view of each other as the primary and most common reciprocal construction in English, we find a greater degree of variation in construction types than this traditional view might suggest. Furthermore, we show that each other does not have the same degree of acceptability with all reciprocal situation types.
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    Extreme Morphological Shift: Verbal case in Kayardild
    EVANS, NICHOLAS ; NORDLINGER, RACHEL ( 2004-07)
    Kayardild and the other Tangkic languages of Northern Australia are well known for their typologically unusual and complex case systems (Evans (1995, 2003a), Dench and Evans (1988)). Their extensive case stacking properties, and their use of case to mark clausal tense/aspect/mood properties (so called `modal’ case (Evans 1995)) have received much attention in recent LFG literature (Andrews 1996, Nordlinger 1998, Nordlinger and Sadler 2000, Sadler and Nordlinger 2002). In this paper we discuss the phenomenon of ‘verbal case’ (Evans 1995, 2003b), as yet unaddressed in these theoretical accounts, by which nominals are inflected with an alternative set of semantic case markers causing them to inflect like verbs, while still functioning syntactically as nominals. The phenomenon of verbal case poses a number of challenges for theories of morphology and the morphology-syntax interface. We argue that it can be naturally captured in a theoretical model that assumes a strict separation of morphology and syntax, as in LFG. Building on much recent work in LFG-based morphology arguing for a distinction between morphological features (m-features) and syntactic features (s-features) (e.g. Sadler and Spencer 2001, Ackerman and Stump (in press), Sells (in press)), we propose that such a distinction is required at the categorical level also: verbal case converts a nominal stem into a morphological verb, while maintaining its syntactic category of noun. We show how this approach interacts with the constructive case model of Nordlinger (1998) to provide a unified account of Kayardild case at the morphosyntactic level, despite the substantial differences in morphological structure.
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    Apposition as coordination: evidence from Australian languages
    Sadler, Louisa ; NORDLINGER, RACHEL (CSLI Publications, 2006)
    Using data from a range of Australian languages, in this paper we argue for an analysis of various nominal appositional structures as syntactic coordinations (i.e. as hybrid f-structures) in LFG. We show that this provides a simple and straightforward account of the surface syntactic similarities among a range of juxtaposed construction types, while the differences between the constructions can be accounted for in the mapping to the semantics. We propose meaning constructors to capture the semantic differences between coordination and apposition.
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    From prefixes to suffixes
    Harvey, M ; Green, I ; Nordlinger, R (John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2006-12-31)
    This article provides a counterexample to the commonly held, if unexamined, proposition that morphemes reconstructed as affixes do not change their position with respect to the root. We do not expect to find that a proto-prefix has suffix reflexes, nor that a proto-suffix has prefix reflexes. In this paper we show, through detailed reconstruction, that paradigms of class/case suffixes in a number of Northern Australian languages derive historically from a paradigm of proto-prefixes, through the encliticization and reduction of prefixed demonstratives to nominals. This process has only left a few traces of the demonstrative stems in the synchronic forms.
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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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    Tetun Dili: A grammar of an East Timorese language.
    WILLIAMS-VAN KLINKEN, CATHARINA LUMIEN ; HAJEK, JOHN TONY ; NORDLINGER, RACHEL (Pacific Linguistics Publishers, 2002)
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    Infinitives in polysynthesis: the case of Rembarrnga
    NORDLINGER, R ; SAULWICK, A ; EVANS, NRD ; SASSE, HJ (Akademie Verlag, 2002)
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    Relating Morphology to Syntax
    SADLER, LS ; NORDLINGER, R ; SPENCER, A ; SADLER, LS (CSLI Publications, 2004)
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    Verbless Clauses: Revealing the Structure within
    NORDLINGER, R ; Sadler, ; Zaenen, ; Simpson, ; King, H ; Grimshaw, ; Maling, ; Manning, (CSLI Publications, 2007)
    Although very frequent in their occurence across the world's languages, verbless constructions have received relatively little attention in the LFG literature (notable exceptions being Rosén (1996) and a brief discussion in Falk (2004)). In this paper we seek to redress this gap by providing a detailed analysis of verbless constructions in LFG. In particular, we show that the flexibility of the architecture of LFG allows for two possible analyses of these clause types, which we term the 'single-tier' and 'double-tier' analyses. Examination of the morphosyntactic properties of verbless clauses cross-linguistically provide support for these two different models of verbless constructions.
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    Case stacking in realizational morphology
    Sadler, L ; NORDLINGER, R (Walter de Gruyter, 2006)