Australian Journal of Linguistics

Vol. 16, no. 2 (1996)

Articles

Observations on variability in the verb phase in Aboriginal English	Ian G. Malcolm	145-168
Early language contact varieties in South Australia	Jane Simpson	169-207
From purposive to manner in Korean: A semantic-pragmatic change of subjectification	Jae Jung Song	209-227

Book reviews

Language in evidence: Issues confronting Aboriginal and multicultural Australia (Diana Eades, editor)	Janet Holmes	229-233
Lexical matters (Ivan A. Sag and Anna Szabolcsi, editors)	Koenraad Kuiper	233-238
Government and binding theory and the minimalist program (Gert Webelhuth, editor)	Alan R. Libert	238-242
The semantics of syntax: A minimalist approach to grammar (Denis Bouchard)	Bert Peeters	242-245
The Germanic languages (Ekkehard König and Johan van der Auwera, editors)	Brian Taylor	245-248

Bibliography: Publications on Australian languages, 1995 Geraldine Triffitt 249-254

Abstracts

Observations on variability in the verb phrase in Aboriginal English

Ian Malcolm

Abstract: Most existing studies of Aboriginal English have been based on data gathered from individuals or small groups of speakers at a single point in time and/or without reference to considerations of language development. This paper addresses a need, for purposes of language planning in education, for more information on English language development in bidialectal Aboriginal children in the primary school years. It focuses on aspects of the verb phrase (known to be particularly salient in distinguishing non-standard varieties from standard English) in seven bidialectal Aboriginal children from a remote Western Australian primary school. The children range in age from five to ten years and their speech was regularly recorded over twelve months. The findings show evidence of the maintenance and development of both dialects and suggest that their speakers have different educational needs from those of children whose first language is either standard English or a language other than English.

Early language contact varieties in South Australia

Jane Simpson

Abstract: This paper discusses contact languages used in the colony of South Australia up until about 1850. The jargon English probably derived in the first place from South Seas Jargon and the pidgin English developing in Tasmania and New South Wales (NSW). In the second place it would have been influenced by the colonists' ideas of how to talk to foreigners (which were in turn influenced by pidgin Englishes and South Seas Jargon). The jargon Kaurna is mostly broken Kaurna, perhaps influenced by English foreigner talk, but there is some suggestion of conventions of Kaurna 'foreigner-talk'. Neither the jargon Kaurna nor the Kaurna language itself lasted very long after the invasion, due to the death of many of the speakers, the movement of other groups into the country, and the impact of English and the culture of monolingualism.

From purposive to manner in Korean: A semantic-pragmatic change of subjectification

Jae Jung Song

Abstract: On the basis of a detailed comparison between the -ke derived manner adverb and the -ke marked subordinate clause of purpose in Korean, this paper suggests that the MANNER function (or expressive function) has developed from the PURPOSIVE function (or propositional/textual function), thus providing evidence for one of the three tendencies identified in Traugott's (1989) theory of semantic-pragmatic change: meanings tend to become increasingly based in the speaker's subjective belief state/attitude toward the proposition. By describing how the speaker's subjective evaluation of a situation may initially have been generated pragmatically, the paper also shows that it is pragmatic strengthening that is responsible for the development in question.

Last update: 30 April 2000
Comments to Tim Curnow