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New Guinea and Australia

New Guinea and Australia. Where?. What?. New Guinea : languages. 830- > 1200 languages (20-25 per cent of the world’s languages ) Out of them about a quarter belong to the Austronesian family . Families that include more than 100 languages in the area: Austronesian

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New Guinea and Australia

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  1. New Guineaand Australia

  2. Where?

  3. What?

  4. New Guinea: languages • 830-> 1200 languages (20-25 per cent of the world’s languages) • Out of them about a quarter belong to the Austronesian family. • Families that include more than 100 languages in the area: • Austronesian • Trans New Guinea (about 300 languages) • Average number of languages within a family is about 25. • The largest language is Enga: 230.000 speakers(2000) • Many languages have less than 100 speakers.

  5. New Guinea: languages

  6. New Guinea: diversity • The largest language density and genetic density in the world. • Probable reasons: • Early settling (> 40.000 years ago) • Landscape (mountains, jungles) • The absence of large political units • Till recently • Now: • Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini • Irian Jaya

  7. New Guinea: diversity • Considerable typological diversity • Some languages are almost isolating • Ternate (западнопапуасская семья; Молуккские о-ва; Hayami-Allen 2001)

  8. New Guinea: diversity • Considerable typologigal diversity • Others are polysynthetic. • Yimas (Sepik-Ramu; Foley 1991)

  9. New Guinea:basic and specific info • Simple phonological systems • About 20 phonemes on average • Sometimes far less: Rotokas (Bougainville Island) • Alphabet: A E G I K O P R S T U V • 12 letters = 11 phonemes • However, the vowel length is not reflected • How this looks like

  10. New Guinea:basic and specific info • Word order: mainly SOV (sometimes SVO, due to the Austronesian influence) • Frequent head marking, more rarely double/dependent marking • Marking of core roles in transitive clauses • NOM-DAT • ERG-ABS (more typical)

  11. New Guinea:basic and specific info • Ergative is often optional and is used for specific information • emphasizing the control of agent • non-standard information structure • unexpected roles • Dani (Foley 2000) ap palu-nen na-sikh-e man python-ERG eat-RM.PAST- 3SG.SBJ ‘The python ate the man’ ap palu-nen na-sikh-e ‘The man ate the python’ Explanation: Normally, people eat pythons and not vice versa

  12. New Guinea:basic and specific info • Gender / nominal classes are not really developed Inanwatan (Marind < Trans New Guinea)) a. mesida-e bada-e-wo person-M bad-M-be ‘Man is bad’ b. mesida-o bada-o-wo person-F bad-F-be ‘Woman is bad’ Mianmin (Ok < Trans New Guinea) a. imen-e small/one taro (MASC) b. imen-e large taro/large quantity of taro (FEM) Yimas: 11 nominal classs

  13. New Guinea:basic and specific info • Expressing spatial semantics Kemtuk (Nimboran) a. iti-si-l-u give-away.to.near.position.below-FUT- 1 SBJ ‘I will give it to you down there near here’ b. iti-sa-l-u give-away.to.far.level.position-FUT-1 SBJ ‘I will give it to you way over there’

  14. New Guinea:basic and specific info • Expressing spatial semantics Ternate (West Papuan; Moluccas; Hayami-Allen 2001)

  15. Where

  16. Not really Australia: Tasmania • Several families? • J. Greenberg: Indo-Pacificsuperfamily = Tasmanian + Papuan + Andaman • The beginning of the 19th c.:for 30 years, the number of Tasmanian aborigines decreased from 5.000 to 500 • Fanny Cochrane Smith (1834-1905) – “the last Tasmanian” • made the only recording of a Tasmanian language (most likely, lingua franca): songs • had 11 children, from whom many current “Tasmanians” are descended

  17. Australia: families

  18. Australia: families Ethnologue • Pama-Nyungan (281) • Lanima • Bunaban (2) • Daly (19) • Djamindjungan (2) • Djeragan (3) • Giimbiyu (3) • Gunwingguan (25) • Laragiyan (1) • Limilngan-Wulna (2) • Nyulnyulan (9) • Tangic (3) • Tiwian (1) • Umbugarla-Ngumbur (2) • West Barkly (3) • Worrorran (12) • Yanyi (2) • Yiwaidjan (7) NB: R.M.W. Dixon: a single family

  19. Australia: languages • 299 languages according to Ethnologue • other sources: about 150-200 languages • About 20 languages which are not endangered • The largest languages (all have less than 3.000 speakers) • Warlpiri • Tiwi • Pitjantjatjara • …

  20. Australia: diversity • Pama-Nyungan • вmore or less synthetic • dependent or double marking • Non-Pama-Nyungan • many languages are polysynthetic Tiwi jinuatəməniŋilipaŋəmat̪at̪umaŋələpiaŋkin̪a He came and stole my wild honey this morning while I was asleep • head or dependent marking

  21. Australia:phonological systems • Vowels • Typically i-a-u • Some languages only have two vowels (a, ә) • Consonants • No fricative consonants • No contrasts based on voicing • Retroflex consonants rt, rn, rl • …

  22. Australia: split ergativity • The choice of the case is determined by the place of a NP in the Animacy Hierarchy • ProN > Human > Animate > Inanimate Dyirbal (pronouns: Nom vs Acc, nouns: Abs vs Erg)

  23. Australia: syntactic ergativity • In some languages, the pivotness of the absolutive argumant is supported by tests which usually point to agentsают на агенса независимо от эргативности/аккузативности. Йидинь: • Purpose clauses • Deletion in coordinate structures

  24. Australia:non-configurationality • “Insufficient” grammaticalization of embededness, “flat structure” • Very free word order • «Discontinuous constituents» (or several constituents?) • Jiwarli (Austin & Bresnan 1996: 246) • Dixon: General information precedes its specification. • Hale: Various interpretations of a single sentence. Warlpiri: • Свободное «опущение» именных групп • Диксон: общая информация идет перед уточняющей.

  25. Australia:non-configurationality • Part-whole constructions • Jiwarli(Austin & Bresnan 1996) • “Adjoined relative clause”: non-embedded, yet subordinated clause which may have functions of both a relative clause and an adverbial clause. Warlpiri: • Insubordination: the “omission” of the matrix clause

  26. Australia:non-canonical use of cases Dench & Evans: Functions of cases (besides the usual relational one) • Adnominal • Referential – “agreement” Warlpiri • Complementizer – marking subordinate clausesпредикации Yukulta • Associating – non-standard marking of NPs dependent on a limited range of forms (associating with these forms)

  27. Australia:non-canonical use of cases • Multiple case marking – the appearance of several cases used in different functions within the same word • Kayardild

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