Volume Four, Number Two
ABSTRACTS
Introduction: Language
contact, hybrids and new varieties: emergent possessive constructions.
pp. 3-10
Simon Musgrave, Monash University
The position of Australia has made it well-suited to work in the field of contact between languages. Firstly, in Australia itself, there is a relatively recent history of a European language (English) being imposed as a dominant language on a rich pre-existing language ecology. This has resulted in large-scale language extinction, ongoing language endangerment (see McConvell and Thieberger 2001 for a recent assessment of the situation), and the creation of contact languages (Harris 1986, Munro 2000). Secondly, there has also been an even more recent influx of non-English speaking migrants into Australian society, which has also had profound linguistic consequences (Romaine 1991, Clyne 2003). And thirdly, Australia is located geographically in a region of great linguistic diversity in which the impact of European contact and the development of modern nation states has had a great influence on patterns of language use. Much of the Austronesian world, including the Pacific, has experienced changes of this sort (Florey 2005a, Siegel 2000). New Guinea must be considered as part of this regional environment also.
The factors mentioned above have ensured that questions about language contact and language change are salient to Australian linguists (see Florey and McConvell 2005). The level of interest in such questions led to the International Working Symposium Language Contact, Hybrids and New Varieties: Emergent Possessive Constructions, held at Monash University in September 2004. The papers collected here were all originally presented at that symposium (with the exception of this introduction), and report research on a range of languages. Volume 4, No. 2 includes papers on languages from Africa, the Maluku region of Indonesia, and from the Pacific region.
The
composite matrix language in mixed possessive constructions in Ewe-English
codeswitching. pp. 11-28.
Evershed Kwasi
Amuzu, University of Ghana
In Ewe (spoken in Ghana, West Africa), relational and non-relational possessum nominals distribute differently in possessive constructions. Relational possessum nominals follow their possessor NPs directly (as dada 'mother' does in John dada 'John's mother') while non-relational possessum nominals require a possessive linker (fe) in-between them and their possessor NPs (as avu 'dog' does in John fe avu 'John's dog'). This morphosyntactic distinction is, however, not applicable in Ewe-English codeswitching: both English relational and non-relational possessum nominals occur after fe in mixed adnominal possessive constructions (APCs). Interestingly, too, no distinction is made between the two types of English possesssum nominals, i.e. those that occur as complements of 's (e.g. mother and dog in John's mother/dog) and those that come before of (e.g. top in top of the desk and Queen in Queenof England). They all follow fe in mixed APCs (and neither 's nor of is acceptable in the mixed APCs).
The paper's orientation is clearly theoretical. Working within Myers-Scotton's (2002) framework, I argue that a Composite Matrix Language-in which English and Ewe play definable roles-frames the APCs. A crucial point is that the morpheme distribution patterns defy explanation in terms of surface structure configurations, a point I demonstrate extensively in Section 2 with Shona Poplack's framework for analysing mixed constituents. Section 3 is devoted to exploring the Composite Matrix Language account.
The
influence of English on Possessive Systems as shown in two Aboriginal
Languages, Arabana (northern SA) and Paakantyi (Darling River, NSW).
pp. 29-42.
Luise A. Hercus, Australian
National University
This paper discusses the gradual erosion of the alienable-inalienable distinction in two Pama Nyungan languages, Arabana and Paakantyi. These two languages become structurally more similar to each other because of the unifying influence of English, which has become the dominant language throughout southern Australia. There is a brief note on inalienability in the Western Kulin languages of Victoria.
Possessing Variation:
Age and Inalienability Related Variables in the Possessive Constructions
of Two Australian Mixed Languages. pp. 43-64.
Felicity Meakins, University of Melbourne
Carmel
O'Shannessy, MPI, Nijmegen and University of Sydney
The paper examines attributive possessive constructions in two north Australian mixed languages, Gurindji Kriol (GK) and Light Warlpiri (LW). In both languages possessive constructions are drawn from the source languages, Gurindji, Warlpiri, Kriol and English, and there is variation within and between languages. The range of possessive forms available in the two languages are presented and factors contributing to the variation within each language are discussed, including age of speaker, the remnants of an in/alienability distinction, and the source language of possessive forms and head NPs.
The expression of possession in Wumpurrarni
English, Tennant Creek. pp. 65-86.
Samantha
Disbray, University of Melbourne
Jane Simpson, University
of Sydney
We discuss the expression of possession in Wumpurrarni English (WE), a variety spoken in the Tennant Creek area of the Northern Territory. We illustrate this from a data-set of 319 utterances containing possessive constructions (drawn from 14 video-recordings of conversations between care-givers and children). We show how the WE constructions relate to those of the source languages, Warumungu, Standard Australian English, and the creole that developed in northern Australia late in the nineteenth century. The interaction between these sources in the development of WE is complex. Three notable features are examined: the use of a possessor clitic whose form is taken from Warumungu, but whose syntactic behaviour is taken from the SAE Genitive clitic, the use of a post-nominal possessor as in Warumungu, and the extension of the possessor clitic to the possession of inalienable things such as body-parts. A body-part possessor construction appears with a wider range of verbs than in standard Australian English, but narrower than that in traditional Warumungu. We show the wide variation in the use of possessive constructions, and suggest that relevant factors are the speaker's age, code-switching, and the context of use.
Language
contact interaction and possessive variation. pp. 87-105.
Patrick McConvell, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Studies
This paper focuses on contact interaction in the development of possessive constructions. In contrast to 'copying' approaches to structural diffusion, contact interaction approaches recognise that internal and external models interact, often to produce innovation and variation. Some examples of this in possessive constructions from early English and pidgins and creoles are explored, including the question of 'for'and its equivalents becoming postposed including in Australian creoles. Two theories of how adoption of structures from external sources can be staged and modified, that of Carol Myers-Scotton (the 4-M model) and Ross's Metatypy model are compared with examples from possessives, as well as Aikhenvald's treatment of possessive construction diffusion in the Amazon. There appears to be common ground between these three approaches, and the contact interaction approach in general.