Australian Journal of Linguistics

Vol. 13, no. 1 (1993)

Articles

Gilyak lenition as a phonological rule	Juliette Blevins	1-21
Extern constructions in English	Peter C. Collins	23-37
Ergativity and linguistic geography	Johanna Nichols	39-89

Book reviews

The dialects of modern German: A linguistic survey (C. V. J. Russ, editor)	Kate Burridge	91-95
The feminist critique of language: A reader (D. Cameron, editor)	Joanne Winter	95-100
Bad language (L.-G. Andersson and P. Trudgill)	Jae Jung Song	100-104
Accessing noun-phrase antecedents (M. Ariel)	Janine Toole	104-109
Order and constituency in Mandarin Chinese (Yen-hui Audrey Li)	Guo Wu	109-114

Abstracts

Gilyak lenition as a phonological rule

Juliette Blevins

Abstract: This paper offers a phonological analysis of lenition in Gilyak (Nivkh, Nivx), a Paleo-Siberian language. Gilyak lenition involves spirantization of stops when these stops are preceded by stops, vowels or glides. Underspecified representations are used to express Gilyak lenition as a context-sensitive feature-filling rule triggered by the natural class of segments lacking values for the distinctive feature [continuant]. Relative Underspecification, which combines the phonological grounding of Naive Underspecification with the predicative power of Radical and Restricted Underspecification models, is proposed. Relative Underspecification takes into account both the binary/privative status of a feature, and the presence or absence of evidence for that feature within the phonology.

Extern constructions in English

Peter C. Collins

Abstract: This paper explores the similarities and differences between those constructions commonly regarded as being derived via the processes of 'left-dislocation', 'right-dislocation' and 'topicalisation'. The constructions are here claimed to share in common the presence of an element 'external' to the governing clause, but to exhibit certain differences both in terms of their structural properties (notably, the types of syntactic function represented by the external element in the governing clause), and in terms of their communicative discourse properties. Left extern constructions foreground an element which, in the vast majority of cases, serves as a topic-expression. One type generally serves to redirect the flow of the discourse by reintroducing a lapsed topic and presenting new information relevant to that topic via the governing clause. The other type generally serves to maintain the flow of discourse by preserving a current discourse topic and offering little in the way of communicatively significant comment about it. The right extern construction typically serves to express a proposition about a contextually salient entity, and then reinforces the identity of the topic-entity for purposes of clarification or emphasis.

Ergativity and linguistic geography

Johanna Nichols

Abstract: Nothing in our present understanding of accusative and ergative structures and their functions would predict major discrepancies in the frequencies of alignments in the various continents, but such asymmetries exist: Australia and Eurasia have far more ergative languages than expected, the New World has far more stative-active languages, and Africa has far fewer non-accusative languages. In terms of its association with other grammatical features, its areal distribution, and its consistency in genetic groupings, ergativity proves to be a recessive phenomenon, while stative-active is not recessive but simply low in frequency. This makes the high frequency of ergativity in two continents even more unexpected. The continental asymmetries cannot be explained as reflecting the evolution of language or founder effects in the peopling of continents. Most of them have resulted accidentally from structural and genetic skewings created by spread zones in continental interiors. The alignment asymmetries suggest that the spread zones have been in existence for many, many millennia.

Last update: 2 May 2000
Comments to Tim Curnow