School of Languages and Linguistics - Theses
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ItemA grammar of the Lopit language( 2019)This thesis is the first comprehensive description of the grammar of Lopit, an Eastern Nilotic language traditionally spoken in South Sudan. It is based on extensive fieldwork with Lopit speakers living in Melbourne and, to a lesser extent, in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. It focuses on the Dorik variety of the language. Following introductory discussion, analyses are presented of Lopit phonology; word classes; and morphology of the noun phrase and the verb. This is then followed by analyses of verbal tense, aspect and mood; basic sentence structure; the expression of property concepts and adverbial notions; and clause combining constructions. This study shows that, in many ways, Lopit is a typical non-Bari Eastern Nilotic language. Lopit has a nine-vowel system with an Advanced Tongue Root distinction, and tones used for both lexical and grammatical distinctions. Number marking follows the tripartite system of singulative, plurative and replacement marking, and property concepts are mainly expressed with stative verbs in relative clause constructions. As is typical of Eastern Nilotic languages, Lopit has two classes of verbs and bound pronominal marking on verbs. It is a verb-initial language and the unmarked word order is VSO. Lopit has a marked nominative case system, with nominative and absolutive case distinguished by tone. Lopit does, however, exhibit a number of features which are either not present or have not been identified in other Eastern Nilotic languages. These include the ‘greater singular’, where a morphologically singular noun can be used to indicate a very large number. Lopit also appears to differ from other Eastern Nilotic languages in that there is a three-way contrast in aspect: neutral, imperfective and perfective. In addition, the marking of aspect is determined by the phonotactic structure of the verb root. Lopit appears to have a larger range of modal distinctions than other Eastern Nilotic languages, including the irrealis, the potential, the conditional and the obligative. While inclusory constructions are present in other Eastern Nilotic languages, Lopit appears to be unique in that it distinguishes two kinds of inclusory constructions, one of which has a topicalised, but not expressed, noun phrase. The detailed description of Lopit morphological and syntactic structures presented in this thesis offers valuable insights in relation to several grammatical features which are cross-linguistically rare or under-described, while also making a significant contribution to the typological and historical understanding of Eastern Nilotic languages, and Nilo-Saharan languages more generally. As the first comprehensive grammar of Lopit, it also offers a strong foundation from which more detailed examinations of specific phenomena can proceed.
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ItemA grammar of Paku: a language of Central Kalimantan( 2018)This thesis describes the phonology, morphology and syntax of Paku, a highly endangered East Barito language spoken in four villages in the southeast of Central Kalimantan province, Indonesia. It has currently about fifty speakers (conservative estimate, including semi-speakers) and since children, for a variety of reasons, no longer learn the language, it is classified as moribund. This thesis is part of a ARC-funded project The South East Barito languages in Indonesia and Madagascar: Safeguarding their past and future concerned with the documentation of Southeast Barito languages which Paku was thought to be a member of until the recent reclassification of languages in Borneo by Smith (2017). It is a contribution to the description of the rapidly declining linguistic diversity in Borneo and other parts of the world. In doing so, this thesis will also contribute data of Bornean languages to broader typological research. Like many other endangered languages Paku is virtually undescribed and one of the main aims of this part of the project is the thorough documentation of Paku and the compilation of an extensive corpus of data consisting of both narratives and elicited material. This will help create a record of the language before it disappears, a fate which at this stage seems inevitable. The examples used in this thesis are taken from the recorded materials as well as field notes. The data was collected during five field trips totalling nine months conducted between July 2013 and June 2017. Chapter one will introduce the Paku language and the people who use it. It will address the current linguistic situation and provide a brief overview of their traditions and customs. It also includes an overview of the methodology employed in both data collection and analysis and explain some of the conventions used in this thesis. Chapter two is concerned with the phonology in Paku and includes a description of the various and at times unusual phonological processes found in Paku. Chapter three describes word classes that need to be recognised in Paku while chapters four and five focus on nominal and verbal morphology respectively. They furthermore discuss the internal structure of phrases headed by nominals and verbs. Chapter six introduces prepositional phrases which can have various functions both at the phrase and clause level. Chapter seven is the beginning of the syntactic description of Paku and includes a discussion of grammatical relations and word order. It also identifies the different clause types found in the language. Chapter eight looks at question formation and chapter nine explores complex sentences. In Paku they include coordinated clauses, adverbial clauses, and complementation. The most intriguing features of Paku are found in the phonology of the language. For instance, Paku features extensive harmony systems. Firstly, there is comprehensive nasal harmony. This in itself is not unusual in the Austronesian world, but Paku has developed a mechanism of preventing nasal spread which is almost exclusively found in languages of Borneo - nasal preplosion. Furthermore, the majority of affixes are subject to vowel harmony, a feature which sets Paku apart from other Barito languages in the area and which provides valuable insight for potential reconstruction work. Finally, Paku features nasal substitution and accretion.
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ItemProsody and grammar in Dalabon and Kayardild( 2011)This dissertation presents a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the interaction between grammatical structure and prosodic structure in two Australian languages, Dalabon and Kayardild. The typological profiles of these languages contrast dramatically: Dalabon is an extreme head-marking polysynthetic language, in which a single verb can carry all of the information typically associated with a clause in a language like English (e.g. M. Baker, 1996; Evans & Sasse, 2002). Kayardild is an extreme dependent-marking language, with syntactic relationships encoded on nominal dependents through sequences of case morphology (Dench & Evans, 1988; Evans, 1995a; Nordlinger, 1998). One of the main motivations for studying the interaction between grammatical structure and prosodic constituency in two grammatically distinct languages is that a comparison will potentially test the effects that grammatical structure may have on prosody. By examining two structurally different languages it then becomes possible to test certain hypotheses regarding the grammatical influence on prosodic structure. Whether an extreme dependent-marking language and an extreme head-marking language show similar or different prosodic structural patterns may either support or disprove statements regarding the universality of the interaction between prosodic and grammatical structure. This dissertation presents both quantitative and qualitative findings, based on approximately 75 minutes of recorded Dalabon and Kayardild narratives. The hypotheses examined in this dissertation concern whether factors such as grammatical complexity, the location of clause boundaries, discourse effects such as the introduction of new information, as well as prosodic length, affect prosodic constituency boundary location and strength, irrespective of the language type in question. Although the two languages differ dramatically in their grammatical structures, the overall interaction between prosody and the various grammatical factors may be expected to show similar patterns. In order to test these hypotheses, the relationships between grammatical complexity and prosodic constituency, between the clause and prosodic constituency, and between prosodic length and prosodic constituency are examined. The results presented here show that there is a large amount of consistency across both languages in terms of the prosodic phrasing of clauses overall, supporting the view that prosodic structure is independent of grammatical structure. However, the results also show there is interesting variation in the prosodic phrasing of constituents within the clause as well as overall pausing patterns, suggesting that typological structure does have a role to play in prosodic structure. The chapters are structured as follows: Chapter 1 provides the introduction and context for the research, with definitions of prosody and intonation, a review of the literature on the interaction between prosody and grammar, and the aims and hypotheses. Chapter 2 provides language overviews of Dalabon and Kayardild. Chapter 3 provides a description of the methods and materials, including an overview of the corpus, and the statistical methods and annotation conventions used. Chapter 4 provides descriptions of the intonation phrases found in Dalabon and Kayardild, including a description of the contour types found, the makeup and boundary tones of these phrases. Chapter 5 provides an examination of the relationship between the clause and prosodic phrasing including analyses of pause, IP boundaries, clause types, constituents and word order. In Chapter 6 some of the interesting findings to emerge from the preceding analyses are investigated. This includes the prosodic behaviour of nominals and examples of IPs which comprise multiple verbs. Chapter 7 concludes the dissertation, providing an overview of the main findings and their implications, as well as a discussion of directions for future research.