A Salvage Grammar of Malgana, the Language of Shark Bay, Western Australia

A Salvage Grammar of Malgana, the Language of Shark Bay, Western Australia

Author: Andrew D. Gargett

Publisher: Pacific Linguistics College of Asia and Pacific the Australian National University

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13:

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There are no longer any speakers of the West Australian Aboriginal language Malgana who have any degree of fluency, and the series of analyses in this report are based on data from audio tapes made in the middle of the last decade of the 20th century, as well as various written materials produced over more than 150 years. This grammar is therefore an attempt to salvage from the scarce material available as complete a description of Malgana as possible. Nevertheless, the character of Malgana shines through what remains. For example, typical of Pama-Nyungan languages in general, Malgana exhibits split-ergative nominal marking, and of Aboriginal languages of the central West of Australia in particular, Malgana displays a full contrastive laminal series of stops in its phonology. A conscious effort has been made to provide in this grammar as many resources as possible for the researcher interested in comparative study of the surrounding languages. To this end, a (Malgana-based) comparative wordlist has been constructed for the languages of the region centring on the Murchison River: Malgana, Nhanda, Badimaya, Wajarri, and (Southern and Northern) Yingkarta.


The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages

The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages

Author: Claire Bowern

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-06-06

Total Pages: 1179

ISBN-13: 0192558498

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The Oxford Guide to Australian Languages is a wide-ranging reference work that explores the more than 550 traditional and new Indigenous languages of Australia. Australian languages have long played an important role in diachronic and synchronic linguistics and are a vital testing ground for linguistic theory. Until now, however, there has been no comprehensive and accessible guide to the their vast linguistic diversity. This volume fills that gap, bringing together leading scholars and junior researchers to provide an up-to-date guide to all aspects of the languages of Australia. The chapters in the book explore typology, documentation, and classification; linguistic structures from phonology to pragmatics and discourse; sociolinguistics and language variation; and language in the community. The final part offers grammatical sketches of a selection of languages, sub-groups, and families. At a time when the number of living Australian languages is significantly reduced even compared to twenty year ago, this volume establishes priorities for future linguistic research and contributes to the language expansion and revitalization efforts that are underway.


Producing Figurative Expression

Producing Figurative Expression

Author: John Barnden

Publisher: Figurative Thought and Language

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 549

ISBN-13: 9789027208033

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This collection contains a selection of recent work on people's production of figurative language (metaphoric, ironic, metonymic, hyperbolic, ...) and similarly of figurative expression in visual media and artefact design. The articles illuminate issues such as why and under what circumstances people produce figurative expression and how it is moulded by their aims. By focusing on production, the intention is to help stimulate more academic research on it and redress historically lower levels of published work on generation than on understanding of figurative expression. The contributions stretch across various academic disciplines--mainly psychology, cognitive linguistics and applied linguistics, but with a representation also of philosophy and artificial intelligence--and across different types of endeavour--theoretical investigation and model building, experimental studies, and applications focussed work (for instance, figurative expression in product design and online support groups). There is also a wide-ranging introductory chapter that touches on areas outside the scope of the contributed articles and discusses difficult issues such as a complex interplay of production and understanding.


Language in Time and Space

Language in Time and Space

Author: Brigitte L.M. Bauer

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2011-03-01

Total Pages: 473

ISBN-13: 3110897725

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The honoree of this Festschrift has for many years now marked modern trends in diachronic and synchronic linguistics by his own publications and by stimulating those of numerous others. This collection of articles presents data-oriented studies that integrate modern and traditional approaches in the field, thus reflecting the honoree's contribution to contemporary linguistics. The articles relate to comparative data from (early) Indo-European languages and a variety of other languages and discuss the theoretical implications of phenomena such as linguistic universals, reconstruction, and language classification.


The Languages of Australia

The Languages of Australia

Author: R. M. W. Dixon

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-01-20

Total Pages: 574

ISBN-13: 1108017851

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This ground-breaking 1980 study of over 200 Australian languages is still valuable, especially for its non-technical opening chapters.


The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland

The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland

Author: R. M. W. Dixon

Publisher: CUP Archive

Published: 1972-12-14

Total Pages: 474

ISBN-13: 9780521085106

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Originally published in 1972, this study is dedicated to the surviving speakers of the Dyirbal, Giramay and Mamu dialects. For more than ten thousand years they lived in harmony with each other and with their environment. Over one hundred years ago many of them were shot and poisoned by European invaders. Those allowed to survive have been barely tolerated tenants on their own lands, and have had their beliefs, habits and language help up to ridicule and scorn. In the last decade they have seen their remaining forests taken and cleared by an American company, with the destruction of sites whose remembered antiquity is many thousands of years older than the furthest event in the shallow history of their desecrators. The survivors of the three tribes have stood up to these diversities with dignity and humour. They continue to look forward to the day when they may again be allowed to live in peaceful possession of some of their own lands, and may be accorded a respect that they have been denied, but which they have been forcibly made to accord to others.


The Rise and Fall of Languages

The Rise and Fall of Languages

Author: Robert M. W. Dixon

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1997-12-11

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 9780521626545

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A different approach to the theories on language evolution and change.