Complement Clauses and Grammatical Relations in Finnish

Kristina Sands

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

Complement Clauses and Grammatical Relations in Finnish looks at complement clauses in Finnish both from a syntactic and a semantic point of view. All seven of the complement clause types used in Finnish are discussed including a detailed discussion on the argument(s) of the main verb that these clauses fill as well as how the arguments of the main clause and the complement clause inter-relate. There is also discussion about the semantics of complement clauses and the verbs with which these co-occur. The most common and important semantic classes of verbs that may govern complement clauses are discussed and it is shown that the types of complement clause that any verb may occur with are determined both by syntactic considerations (such as what types of argument the verb governs and what types of argument the complement clause may fulfil) and by the semantics of both the complement clause and the main verb. The hypothesis that there is a strong semantic relationship between complement clauses and the verbs that the occur with is shown to be true for Finnish.

This study also provides some cross-linguistic information on complement clauses as well as a detailed discussion on the controversial usage of the so-called nominative, accusative, genitive and partitive cases in Finnish and their relationship with the arguments S, A and O.

ISBN 9783862880911. Outstanding grammars from Australia 01. 374pp. 2011.

The Yawuru language of West Kimberley: a meaning-based description

Komei Hosokawa
Kyoto Seika University

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

The present study is a descriptive monograph of the language spoken by Yawuru Aborigines of north-west Australia. The Yawuru language is genetically classified as a member of the Nyulnyulan family. Morphologically it is counted among the so-called "prefixing languages" and has a highly complicated inflexional morphology of verbs, whereas word ordering is remarkably flexible. In terms of syntactic typology, Yawuru is an ergative language which, however, reveals an accusative-type verb agreement System.

The practical orthography for the Yawuru language employed in this monograph is allophonic (i.e. slightly over-differentiating) rather than purely phonemic. Reasons for using such a spelling System are stated in Chapter 3.

Throughout the description, considerable weight is laid on elucidating semantic aspects of the morphology and syntax of the language rather than merely presenting forms and their combinations. A meaningwise approach is central to this description, particularly in the treatment of verbal and pronominal morphology (Chapters 4 and 7). Also semantically-oriented are accounts of preverbs (Chapter 5), case marking (Chapter 6), adverbs (Chapter 8), reduplication (Chapter 9) and syntactic construction patterns (Chapter 10). A large number of sentential examples, more often context-bound than not, will be cited in order to substantiate the points of discussion. Unless otherwise noted, all the sample sentences are taken from native Speakers' natural spontaneous utterances.

Comparative linguistics is outside the scope of this study, although several important facts are pointed out in footnotes.

ISBN 9783862880935. Outstanding grammars from Australia 02. 531pp. 2011.

The Muɹinyapata Language of North-West Australia

Michael James Walsh
University of Sydney

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

This study presents a synchronic description of the main dialect of the Muɹinyapata language of North-West Australia.

It is divided into six chapters. The first is introductory placing Muɹinyapata in the context of Australian languages, giving some background to the area In which the language is spoken and assessing previous work on this group. The second chapter provides a phonological description and an account of morphophonological change. The segmental phonology is presented in a distinctive feature format. Some tentative rules are advanced to account for stress. The third chapter establishes the word classes of Muɹinyapata, briefly discussing their defining characteristics. A preliminary discussion on noun classification is embarked upon which is given a fuller semantic basis in chapter six. Chapter four presents the morphological facts of the language: data which assist the description of verbal morphology are presented in Appendics 2 and 3.

Chapter five provides a preliminary discussion of Muɹinyapata syntax. A brief account of the semantics of the language is given in chapter six, with particular emphasis on noun-classification. Three sample texts are provided in Appendix 4.

The bulk of the text is concerned with synchronic description of the phonology and morphology of the language. Their unusual complexity demand lengthy discussion with a more detailed account of the syntax and semantics being reserved for a later study.

ISBN 9783862880942. Outstanding grammars from Australia 03. 465pp. 2011.

Longgu Grammar

Deborah Hill
University of Canberra

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

Longgu is an Oceanic language spoken on the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. This grammar is based on fieldwork carried out in the village of Bambasu in 1989 and 1991. The grammar provides a description of the main areas of Longgu grammar. The focus of the grammar is the morphosyntax of the language. Like other Oceanic languages, Longgu exhibits complexity in the areas of transitivity and possession and, while the sections on transitivity and possession provided here could be further elaborated and clarified based on later fieldwork and research on related Oceanic languages, the grammar covers these topics in some detail.

The grammar includes a very brief summary of the phonology of the language, and provides an overview of basic clause structure in Longgu. It provides information about word classes and describes the internal structure of the verb phrase (or verb complex), noun phrase, and prepositional phrase. In addition, it describes dependent clauses, co-ordination, and outlines the structure of interrogative clauses. Longgu Grammar is an introduction to the grammar of the language and reflects an initial understanding of a language about which little had been written before this grammar.

ISBN 9783862880959. Outstanding grammars from Australia 04. 340pp. 2011.

Rembarnga, a language of central Arnhem Land

Graham R. McKay
Edith Cowan University

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

Rembarrnga is polysynthetic Aboriginal language of central Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. It is one of the ‘prefixing’ languages of northern Australia, having both prefixes and suffixes, and has been classified as a Gunwinyguan language. Verb morphology is complex, with the verb word able to constitute a sentence on its own and frequently doing so. The incorporation of nouns and other elements into the verb is a prominent feature of this verb complexity. The approach taken in this grammar of the language is primarily descriptive, drawing on a variety of theories of its time for different aspects of the description, but largely using traditional grammatical terminology to maximise the work’s usefulness to linguists with various theoretical backgrounds and to people with practical aims in view such as school programs, literacy work or language learning.

Areas of particular focus in this description are: medial geminate consonants; syllabic glottal stops; pronoun categories, including first person inclusive and its number implications; morphology, including noun incorporation into the verb; and syntax, especially a generalised subordinate clause construction. The work features extensive exemplification and some short texts, plus a list of botanical species names.

ISBN 9783862880898. Outstanding grammars from Australia 05. 406pp. 2011.

Ngan’gityemerri: a language of the Daly River region, Northern Territory of Australia

Nicholas J. Reid
University of New England

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

Ngan'gityemerri is the name of a language spoken in two varieties named Ngan’gikurunggurr and Ngen’giwumirri. This language is spoken near the western coast of Australia’s Northern Territory by about 150 people.

This is a technical reference grammar, rather than a 2nd language learning resource, written for an audience of linguists. It treats Ngan’gikurunggurr and Ngen’giwumirri as a single grammar, but draws explicit attention to those areas where they differ.

Ngan'gityemerri is a non-PamaNyungan language with high levels of morphological complexity. It has a rich system of about 16 noun classes; a sound system atypical of Australia in having a 3-way obstruent contrast; and a verb complex built up through the pairing of an inflecting auxiliary verb with a non-inflecting verb stem (or coverb).

This study aims to provide a broad treatment of most areas of Ngan'gityemerri, so it includes substantial chapters on its phonology, and nominal and verbal morphology. However, as this is a language in which the verb is where the action is, that broad treatment is countered with more detailed exploration of two of the verb’s most interesting aspects: the incorporation of body part terms into the verbal complex; and the semantics of auxiliary verbs.

This grammar is theoretically eclectic, drawing on whatever grammatical tools best achieve the aim of describing Ngan’gityemerri. It is written in straightforward language and contains a large number of natural language examples will best allow the reader to judge the accuracy and internal consistency of the description.

ISBN 9783862881000. Outstanding grammars from Australia 06. 468pp. 2011.

A grammar of Nakkara (Central Arnhem Land coast)

Bronwyn Eather
Appen Butler Hill Inc.

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

Nakkara (now spelt Na-Kara) is a prefixing language of the non-Pama Nyungan variety spoken in and around the community of Maningrida in the Northern Territory of Australia. Like many coastal communities, the Na-Kara tribal area and language group seem always to have been quite small and Na-Kara is now a highly endangered language.

Moderately polysynthetic, Na-Kara has a number of characteristic structural features that place it with other central and western Arnhem groupings. The phonology is relatively straightforward with five vowels; a series of short and long stop consonants; retroflex and alveolar pairs, a lamino-palatal distinction and a full set of nasal sounds.

The morphology is rich and intricate springing from a pronoun system that distinguishes masculine and feminine gender across several number and person categories where an inclusive/exclusive distinction adds to the mix. Verbs carry these often complex pronominal prefixes as well as additional affixes for direction, realis/irrealis, tense and transitivity. Aspect is expressed by complex verbal predicates. Nouns are relatively unencumbered with affixes but share some of the load for locational specification. Demonstrative/deictic forms carry a quasi pronominal load often with three-way locational and referential distinctions.

With a fairly modest lexicon, many forms in Na-Kara are idiomatic and descriptive, relying on compounding for semantic extension.

Outstanding grammars from Australia 07. 504pp. 2011.

ISBN 9783862881536 (print).

ISBN 9783862887644 (e-book,pdf).

A description of the Emmi language of the Northern Territory of Australia

Lysbeth J. Ford
University of Sydney

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

Emmi, named after the word for ‘what’ in the language, is a highly endangered polysynthetic Australian language with only a handful of fluent speakers. A member of the Daly River sprach-bund of the Northern Territory, Emmi is a head-marking language with vestigial noun class marking, but a highly developed system of verb classifiers and ordered nominal and propositional enclitics. Emmi noun incorporation is lexical and syntactic, and, as in other languages of the region, lexically incorporated body-parts function as metaphors and classifiers for entities of similar shape to these body-parts. The syntax of Emmi simple and complex clauses involves serial constructions in which major intransitive verbs have been poly-grammaticised to provide aspectual information.

Ford has since worked on neighbouring related languages, also highly endangered, which have similar highly developed systems of verb classifiers, and clitics, but a more extensive system of noun classifiers. She has also worked extensively on traditional songs in Emmi, its closely related dialect Mendhe, and the related languages Marri Ammu, Marri Tjabin and Marri Ngarr, and compared the use of all these languages in wangga and lirrga song-texts.

ISBN 9783862881543. Outstanding grammars from Australia 08. 465pp. 2013.

A grammar of Motuna

Masayuki Onishi
RIHN (Research Institute for Humanity and Nature), Kyoto, Japan

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

This is a first descriptive grammar of Motuna — a Non-Austronesian language spoken by circa 16 thousand people (in 2000) in the “Siwai” area of the Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. It is one of the six languages belonging to the South Bougainville Family. This is written mainly on the basis of the analysis of narrative texts (three of which are given in Appendix) and other linguistic data provided by two Motuna speakers living in Australia.

Motuna has many unique typological characteristics (Chap 1). It has a small inventory of phonemes and a simple CV(C) syllable structure; morae play an important role in accent assignment, reduplication, and “dearticulation” of Ci/Cu syllables into three coda consonants (Chaps 2, 4 and 13). The language is both head- and dependent-marking — core arguments (S, O and A) are obligatorily cross-referenced by verbs, while A NP is optionally marked by an ergative (instrumental) case suffix (Chap 3).

Nominal and verbal morphologies of Motuna are highly complex and elaborate. All the nominals belong to a fully grammaticalised noun class system based on their natural genders (masculine/neuter, feminine, diminutive, local and manner), while some of them are optionally categorised by classifiers combined with numerals, demonstratives, verbs, etc. (Chaps 4 and 8). Among nominals, kinship terms constitute possessive constructions where pronominal possessors are obligatorily marked by pronominal prefixes. Some local nouns have deictic functions, indicating locations or directions. Pragmatic functions of NPs are indicated by word order, case markings and the demonstrative/article (Chaps 3, 6, and 10).

Verbs can be classified according to the cross-referencing markings they take. About half the verb stems of Motuna are ambi-transitive, taking both transitive (A and O) and middle (S) suffixes. The rest are mostly intransitive. Intransitive verbs are of four types: (1) Sa type taking A-type suffixes, (2) So verbs taking O-type suffixes, (3) middle type, and (4) five most frequently used irregular verbs. Causative and applicative valency-changing suffixes productively derive transitive verbs from these stems (Chaps 12-14). Motuna has an extensive tense/aspect/mood system (Chap 15). Clauses are mainly combined by medial verbs (sensitive to switch-reference and relative aspects) and relative clauses (Chap 17).

ISBN 9783862882076. Outstanding grammars from Australia 09. 593pp. 2011.

Ewe: Its Grammatical Constructions and Illocutionary Devices

Felix Kofi Ameka
Leiden University

RMW Dixon (series ed.)

This work offers a modern description of Ewe(GBE), a Kwa (Niger-Congo) language of West Africa. It assumes that the “essence of linguistics is the quest for meaning” (Whorf) and investigates the meanings of grammatical constructions and illocutionary devices representing them in Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) style explications. The explications account for the range of use of the constructions suggested by data from diversified mediated discourse: television and radio interviews and drama, written plays and fiction as well as insider knowledge of and observed behaviour both as participant and observer in Ewe communities of practice.

The author draws ecumenically on insights from functional and formal linguistic approaches. The work opens with an overview of Ewe structural grammar. The rest of the work is divided into three parts. Part II concentrates on property denoting expressions, imperfective aspect constructions and possession. Part III examines the grammatical resources available to the Ewe speaker for packaging information in a clause: scene-setting constructions, a “capability passive” construction and experiential constructions. In Part IV illocutionary devices such as formulaic and routine expressions, address terms and interjections are described paying attention to their socio-cultural dimensions of use.

This work is of interest to Africanists and linguists interested in grammatical description, typology, semantics and pragmatics as well as anthropologists interested in ethnography of communication and the relation between language and culture.

ISBN 9783862882991. Outstanding grammars from Australia 10. 756pp. 2012.