Mary Laughren

Nhanda: An aboriginal language of Western Australia.

This work presents a sketch grammar of Nhanda, a Pama-Nyungan language of the central coast of Western Australia presently on the verge of extinction. The grammar presents the general features of the language within the Australian context, followed by a study of Nhanda sound patterns.

Warlpiri verbs of change and causation: The thematic core

The morphosyntactic, semantic, and phonological properties of Warlpiri verbs have been investigated by a number of scholars including Hale (1982, 1983), Hale, Laughren, and Simpson (1995), Harvey and Baker (2005), Laughren (1988, 1992), Legate (2002, 2003, 2008), Levin (1983), Nash (1982, 1986), Reimer (2002, 2003, 2008), and Simpson (1991, 2002). This study will focus on that part of the verbal complex which I will refer to as the ‘thematic core’. It minimally consists of a thematic verb (V) which may be augmented by a non-inflecting preverbal (PV) element of a class which, following Nash 1982, I will refer to as ‘lexical’: [(PV lexical])=V], or by PVs derived from other phrasal categories. I will argue that the thematic core of the larger verbal constituent ‘maps onto’ an event structure which represents its predicate argument structure (PAS) and its Aktionsart properties. This study investigates the relationship between the PV and V forms which instantiate the thematic core, from the perspective of their individual and combined contribution to the underlying event structure. It also compares the event structure of ‘heavy verbs’ (HV) with their ‘light verb’ (LV) homophones, and also with synonymous PV-LV complex verbs.

Edge Effects in Warlpiri Yawulyu Songs: Resyllabification, Epenthesis, Final Vowel Modification

Song genres vary as to which aspects of language and music are matched to create a well-formed song. For example, English folk songs match stressed syllables to strong musical beats. Some song styles have no requirements on how language and music should align. This article analyses how text and music align in Warlpiri womens songs from central Australia and finds there are ‘text-setting’ rules for setting text to musical rhythm. We first identify the formal units of the text and music and then account for their combination by two matching rules. In Warlpiri, text-setting involves matching each syllable to one metrical (rhythmic) position and aligning phonological phrase edges with bar edges. Linguistic units smaller than the phrase, such as those in reduplications and other polymorphemic words, require no such alignment. Alignment is often met through lengthening the right edge of a phrase, which often results in a distortion of the patterns of syllabic prominence in speech. Preferred structures for both text and music can lead to variations of a song based on a reordering of these preferences. This can be exploited to restructure songs when words must be avoided for social reasons.

Sustaining women's yawulyu/awelye: Some practitioners' and learners' perspectives

In 2010 the authors visited various Central Australian communities, including Willowra, Tennant Creek, Alekarenge, Barrow Creek and Ti Tree, to interview some of our research collaborators past and present about how they saw the present and future of their yawulyu/awelye traditions. Yawulyu (in Warlpiri and Warumungu) and Awelye (in Kaytetye and other Arandic languages) are cognate names for womens country-based rituals, including songs, dancing, ritual objects and knowledge surrounding particular country and Dreaming stories. In the course of our research we spoke to women from different communities, different age groups, different language groups, and different clans, seeking to open discussion about past and contemporary practices of learning, performing and teaching this performance-based knowledge, to help us understand what the practitioners saw as the most fruitful ways of sustaining the traditions, as well as what difficulties they saw in their way. In this article we present statements from many of the women interviewed, highlighting the key issues that emerged and discussing the importance of recordings and other documentation of performances for the future sustainability of the various yawulyu/awelye traditions discussed.

Nhanda: An Aboriginal Language of Western Australia (review)

Through this volume Blevins makes available the 2rst detailed description of the Nhanda language, covering its phonology, morphology, and basic syntax, and including both English-Nhanda and Nhanda-English wordlists. The data rely almost exclusively on the speech of a single speaker, Mrs. Lucy Ryder, from whom Blevins, in collaboration with Doug Marmion from the Yamaji Language Centre, recorded Nhanda over a period of three years in the 1990s. Nhanda is no longer spoken as a primary language of communication, English having replaced it in this role for several generations now. Blevins informs us that, at the time of European occupation of their lands in the nineteenth century, Nhanda-speaking people lived along the western Australian coast between the Murchinson River in the north and the location of present-day Geraldton in the south. According to Blevins, their territory occupied “a coastal strip 20–100 kilometers wide.” The exact location of Nhanda country in precontact times is understandably dif2cult to ascertain with any real accuracy, but the reader should be aware that authors differ in where they draw the boundaries of traditional Nhanda country (see Tindale 1974). B reviews earlier sources of documentation of Nhanda in chap. 1, “The Language and its Speakers,” including the works of several nineteenth century recorders. She has pieced together a picture of dialectal variation, comparing the speech of Mrs. Lucy Ryder, who represents a northern variety, with the more southerly dialects represented in earlier sources. This chapter also situates Nhanda in relation to surrounding languages, all of which were classifed by O’Grady, Voegelin, and Voegelin (OVV) (1966) in their massive survey of Australian languages as belonging to the South West Group of the Pama-Nyungan (PN) language family. Another published description of Nhanda, although much more limited than B’s study, is included in OVV 1966:119–128. This was based on 2eldwork carried out by Ken Hale and Geoff O’Grady in 1960. OVV 1966 classi2ed Nhanda as a member of their Kardu subgroup along with its northern and eastern neighbors Wajarri, Yingkarta, Malgana, and Badimaya, on the basis of the percentage of shared vocabulary on a Swadesh-style 100-word list. Blevins and Marmion (1994) and Blevins (1999) have disputed this classi2cation, arguing, mainly on the basis of distinct morphological paradigms but also on the basis of phonological peculiarities not shared by the other Kardu languages, that Nhanda was more likely to be a distinct PN language predating the advent of speakers of languages belonging to OVV’s (1966) South West Group. Some additional data presented in this work strengthens this hypothesis, in my view. However, in the book under review here, which appears to predate Blevins (1999), B seems to be proposing a less radical scenario in which Nhanda is simply shown to be quite radically divergent on a number of points from other Kardu languages.

Me and my waddy

Foreword by James Pustejovsky.- Preface.- Volume 2 Problems.- Volume 2 Solutions.- Index of Languages.- Index of Computational Topics.- Index of Other Topics.- About the Editor.

Stopping and flapping in Warlpiri

Foreword by James Pustejovsky.- Preface.- Volume 2 Problems.- Volume 2 Solutions.- Index of Languages.- Index of Computational Topics.- Index of Other Topics.- About the Editor.