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Forty Years On: Ken Hale and Australian Languages
... I will not comment in detail here on Schürmann's linguistic work. It is discussed by Hercus and Simpson (2001), who make the following comments: ...
... The following exemplify a range of different interpretations associated with juxtaposed nominal structures in Australian languages, all of which are frequently analysed as appositional constructions in Australian language descriptions (e.g. Blake (1979 Blake ( , 1983 Blake ( , 1987 Blake ( , 2001); Evans (1995); Heath (1978 Heath ( , 1984). These constructions all have in common the fact that they involve the juxtaposition of nominal elements having both the same referent and the same grammatical function, as evidenced by the fact that the nominals involved are all inflected for the same case feature. ...
It is well known that Australian languages make heavy use of nominal apposition. However there is little discussion in the theoretical liter ature of how such appositional structures should be analysed syntactically. We present a range of data from Australian languages illustrating how multiple nominals share a single gramamtical function within the clause. We argue that such constructions should be treated as set-valued grammat- ical functions in LFG. Sets as values for functions are well-established in LFG and are used in the representation of adjuncts, and also in the repre sentation of coordination. In many Australian languages, coordination is expressed asyndetically, that is, by nominal juxtaposition with no overt coordinator at all. We argue that the syntactic similarity of all of these juxtaposed constructions (coordinations and a ppositions alike) motivates an analysis in which they are treated similarly in the syntax, but suitably distinguished in the semantics. We show how this can be achieved within LFG, providing a unified treatment of juxtaposition in Australian languages, and demonstrating the strength of the modular Lexical-Functional Grammar approach.
Many languages exhibit differential object marking (DOM), where only certain types of grammatical objects are marked with morphological cases. Traditionally, it has been claimed that DOM arises as a way to prevent ambiguity by marking objects that might otherwise be mistaken for subjects (e.g., animate objects). While some recent experimental work supports this account, research on language typology suggests at least one alternative hypothesis. In particular, DOM may instead arise as a way of marking objects that are atypical from the point of view of information structure. According to this account, rather than being marked to avoid ambiguity, objects are marked when they are given (already familiar in the discourse) rather than new. Here, we experimentally investigate this hypothesis using two artificial language learning experiments. We find that information structure impacts participants’ object marking, but in an indirect way: atypical information structure leads to a change in word order, which then triggers increased object marking. Interestingly, this staged process of change is compatible with documented cases of DOM emergence. We argue that this process is driven by two cognitive tendencies. First, a tendency to place discourse given information before new information, and second, a tendency to mark noncanonical word order. Taken together, our findings provide corroborating evidence for the role of information structure in the emergence of DOM systems.
Warlpiri and Warlmanpa (Ngumpin-Yapa languages of Australia) exhibit a complex predicate construction in which a class of preverbs introduces a single argument that is not shared by the argument structure of the inflecting verb, nor is there necessarily any shared event structure. This is problematic for many theories of linking structures of complex predicates, since no arguments or events are shared between the predicative elements of the complex predicate. The same grammatical relation is instantiated by a beneficiary adjunct. In light of new research in event and argument structure, I propose a lexical rule which introduces an applicative argument to account for the beneficiary construction; and that the preverbs take another predicate as one of their arguments to account for the complex predicates. The applicative rule and the preverbs both introduce an argument of the same grammatical relation, leading to interesting interactions, given that two grammatical relations of the same type are not expected to co-occur within a single clause.
As the other chapters in this collection clearly show, the study of biosocial becomings calls for major epistemological shifts in the practice of anthropology. This essay is an attempt to show some of these potentialities, and focuses on the productive processes of a Swazi sawmill, engaging humans, machines, wood, and other materials, as porous overlapping organisms and things intertwined in one and the same environment. The sawmill is located in Enkopolwani, Swaziland, previously an asbestos mining town; it is now being redeveloped by the not-for-profit company Enkopolwani Ministries Swaziland (from now on EMS) as a Pentecostal Christian sustainable business project with the primary mission to provide care for orphans while producing economic wealth from activities such as timber logging and plank production. Through detailed descriptions of life in the sawmill, the chapter also offers a systematic application of Ingold's phenomenology of lines, flows and materials (Ingold 2006b, 2007a 2007b, 2008, 2009, 2010b, 2011) to an extended ethnographic case study, in dialectical conversation with some of the concerns of Marxist factory ethnography (Beynon 1973, Burawoy 1979, Parry 1999, Mollona 2009). It develops Ingold's critique of agency to move beyond a view of workers, industrial machinery and intermediate and finished products interacting as separate bounded entities. Instead, it favours a perceptual engagement with life that privileges flow, flux and process, grounded in the constant production, transformation and dissolution of materials. A 'material' refers here to anything with intrinsic properties, enabling and constraining specific paths of becoming in the environment (Ingold 2007b: 14). Ideas are - and are made of - materials just as much as is wood or sawdust. No a priori distinction is thus assumed between mind and body, the mental and the material, the social and the biological. Materials, like their becomings, are biosocial.
This article focuses on claims about the origin and evolution of language from the point of view of the formalist–functionalist debate in linguistics. In linguistics, an account of a grammatical phenomenon is considered “formal” if it accords center stage to the structural properties of that phenomenon, and “functional” if it appeals to the language user's communicative needs or to domain-general human capacities. The gulf between formalism and functionalism has been bridged in language evolution research, in that some leading formalists, Ray Jackendoff for one, appeal to functional mechanisms such as natural selection. In Jackendoff's view, the biological evolution of language has proceeded in stages, each stage improving communicative efficiency. This article calls into question that idea, pointing to the fact that well-understood purely historical processes suffice to explain the emergence of many grammatical properties. However, one central aspect of formalist linguistic theorizing—the idea of the autonomy of syntax—poses a challenge to the idea, central to most functionalist approaches, that the nature of grammar is a product of purely historical (as opposed to biological) evolution. The article concludes with a discussion of the origins of the autonomy of syntax, speculating that it may well have arisen over evolutionary (as opposed to historical) time.
The label " double reference " is introduced to describe clauses which incorporate reference to the same participant in the same grammatical function via use of two distinct nominal expressions. This paper investigates the discourse-referential function of double reference in narratives in Kala Lagaw Ya, the language of the Western Islands of the Torres Strait. A distributional analysis of the reference tracking options used in the stories is reported, with particular discussion of the Givónian measures of " Referential Distance " and " Potential Interference ". For referential distance the results situate " double reference " as an intermediate accessibility marker, falling between ellipsis and pronouns on the one hand and full nps on the other, but patterning statistically with the latter. With respect to a measure of potential interference, the results are suggestive in locating double reference at the extreme positive end of the scale, although this tendency is not statistically significant. Finally, a narrative structure analysis of one story is reported, showing that double reference almost always occurs in the introductory clauses of three highlight episodes of the story.
A HERCIJS ^^^ ^'^^^''^ discusses the gradual erosion of the alienable-inalienable Al ICTPAII AM KJATirtKJAI I IKJI\/PDQITV distinction in two Pama Nyungan languages, Arabana and Paakantyi. AU51 KALIAIN INAI lUINAL UINIVCK:)! I Y ^^^^ ^^^ languages become structurally more similar to each other because of the unifying influence of English, which has become the dominant language throughout southern Australia. There is a brief note on ij\alienability in the Western Kulin languages of Victoria.
Abstract 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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