School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

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Start date: 2000 × End date: 2009 × Type: Journal Article × Author: Nordlinger, Rachel ×

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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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    When is a temporal marker not a tense? Reply to Tonhauser 2007
    NORDLINGER, R ; SADLER, L (Linguistic Society of America via Johns Hopkins University, 2008)
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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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    Case stacking in realizational morphology
    Sadler, L ; NORDLINGER, R (Walter de Gruyter, 2006)
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    Spearing the Emu Drinking: Subordination and the Adjoined Relative Clause in Wambaya
    NORDLINGER, R (Taylor and Francis, 2006)
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    Nominal Tense in Crosslinguistic Perspective
    NORDLINGER, R ; SADLER, LS (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004)
    It is a general assumption in linguistic theory that the categories of tense, aspect, and mood (TAM) are inflectional categories of verbal classes only. In a number of languages around the world, however, nominals and other NP constituents are also inflected for these categories. In this article we provide a comprehensive survey of tense/aspect/mood marking on NP constituents across the world's languages. Two distinct types are identified: PROPOSITIONAL NOMINAL TAM, whereby the nominal carries TAM information relevant to the whole proposition, and INDEPENDENT NOMINAL TAM, in which the TAM information encoded on the nominal is relevant only to the NP on which it is markedÑindependent of the TAM of the clause as a whole. We illustrate these different types and their various properties using data from a wide range of languages showing that, while certainly unusual, the phenomenon of nominal tense/aspect/mood marking is far less marginal than is standardly assumed. Nominal TAM inflection must be accepted as a real possibility in universal grammatical structure, having significant implications for many aspects of linguistic theory.
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    Tense Beyond the Verb: Encoding Clausal Tense/Aspect/Mood on Nominal Dependents
    NORDLINGER, R ; SADLER, LS (Springer Science+Business Media, 2004)