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Language Workshops
All sessions will be at the RCLT Reading Room unless otherwise specified.
The Research Centre for Linguistic Typology is pleased to announce the RCLT Language Workshops. These will be one-day workshops on one language each time. Every workshop will cover the sociolinguistic situation (speakers, regional and diachronic variation, multilingualism and language contact, etc.), the typological profile (outstanding features in the phonology, morphology, syntax, etc.), and basic conversational practice (what to say when meeting someone for the first time). From September, workshops will be from 10am-1pm (used to be 10am-4.30pm). The workshops will take place roughly every fourth Friday.
All are welcome.
View list of workshops held in 2009.
Session 14 Friday 12 February 2010, 10am-1pm
"Croatian"
Dr Marija Tabain
Session 15 Friday 12 March, 10am-1pm
"Wolof"
Richard Shawyer
Session 16 Friday 9 April, 10am-1pm
"Tibetan"
Dr Guillaume Jacques
Session 17 Friday 7 May, 10am-1pm
"Latin"
Prof. Barry Blake
SPECIAL SESSION: Session 18 Friday 21 May, 10am-1pm
"Workshop on non-configurationality"
Prof. Peter Austin
Optional readings before workshop:
Austin & Bresnan: "Non-configurationality in Australian Aborignal languages
Austin "Word order in a free word order language: the case of Jiwarli"
ABSTRACT:
Over the last 25 years typologists and theoretical linguists have identified a class of languages that have been called “free word order languages” (Blake 1983, 1987, Mithun 1987) or “non-configurational languages” (Hale 1983). These languages have been claimed to have syntactically free word order where variation in the order of words and constituents does not express differences in grammatical functions or clausal semantics. It has been proposed that such languages have “flat” syntactic structure and lack evidence for VP and related configurational asymmetries. In addition to free word order, these languages are said to typically have “split-NPs”, wide-spread zero anaphora, and bound pronominal affixes. A popular account in the Chomskian literature (Jelinek 1984, Baker 1991, 2000) holds that the bound pronominals are true arguments of the predicate while external NPs are merely adjuncts.
In this workshop we will discuss the typological and theoretical literature and then look at material from several Australian Aboriginal dependent-marking free word order languages, with a particular focus on the Mantharta languages of Western Australia (Austin 1995, 2001, 2010). We will see that these languages have all the canonical properties of non-configurationality though they lack bound pronominals. Further examination shows that other Australian languages have some of the “non-configurational properties” but lack others, and hence that the original typology was flawed. We will conclude by looking at how a parallel architecture model of grammar such as Lexical Functional Grammar can be applied to analyse the syntax of these languages (Austin & Bresnan 1996, Nordliner 1998).
References
Austin, Peter 1995 ‘Double case marking in Kanyara and Mantharta languages’ in Frans Plank (ed.) Agreement by Suffixaufnahme, 363–379. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Austin, Peter K. 2001 ‘Zero arguments in Jiwarli, Western Australia’ Australian Journal of Linguistics 21(1): 83-98.
Austin, Peter K. 2010. Case-marking and clause linking in the Mantharta languages, Western Australia. To appear in a volume edited by Seppo K|ittila. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Austin, Peter. 2000. Word order in a free word order language: the case of Jiwarli. In Jane Simpson, David Nash, Mary Laughren, Peter Austin & Barry Alpher (eds.) Forty years on: Ken Hale and Australian languages, 205-323. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.
Austin, Peter & Joan Bresnan. 1996. ‘Non-configurationality in Australian Aboriginal languages. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 14: 215–268.
Baker, Mark C. 1991. Some Subject/Object Non-asymmetries in Mohawk. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 9, 537–576.
Baker, Mark. 2000. The natures of nonconfigurationality. In Mark Baltin and Chris Collins (eds.) Handbook of contemporary syntactic theory, 407–438. Oxford: Blackwells.
Blake, Barry J. 1983. Structure and word order in Kalkatungu: the anatomy of a flat language Australian Journal of Linguistics 3: 143–175.
Blake, Barry J. 1987. Australian Aboriginal Grammar. London: Croom Helm.
Hale, Kenneth. 1983. Warlpiri and the grammar of non-configurational languages. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1.5-77.
Jelinek, Eloise. 1984. Empty categories and non-configurational languages. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 2: 39–76.
Mithun, Marianne. 1987. Is basic word order universal? In Russel S. Tomlin (ed.) Coherence and grounding in discourse, 281-328. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Reprinted in D. Payne (ed.) 1992 Pragmatics of word order flexibility, 15-61. Amsterdam: John Benjamins]
Nordlinger, Rachel. 1998. Constructive Case: evidence from Australia. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information.
Session 19 Friday 4 June, 10am-1pm
"Japanese"
Dr Lidia Tanaka
Session 20 Friday 2 July, 10am-1pm
"Makassarese"
Dr Anthony Jukes
Session 21 Friday 30 July, 10am-1pm
"Burmese"
David Sangdong and Prof. David Bradley
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