Australian Journal of Linguistics

Vol. 18, no. 2 (1998)

Articles

The voiceless fricatives [s] and [h] in Erromangan: One phoneme, two, or one and a bit?	Terry Crowley	149-168
The grammaticalization of impact: Bang and slap in English	N. Riemer	169-183
An acoustic comparison between New Zealand and Australian English vowels	Catherine I. Watson, Jonathan Harrington & Zoe Evans	185-207

Book reviews

Indian English: Texts and interpretation (Raja Ram Mehrotra)	Mark Newbrook	209-210
A grammar of Wardaman: A language of the Northern Territory of Australia (Francesca Merlan)	Mark Harvey	210-214
Tense, aspect and action: Empirical and theoretical contributions to language typology (Carl Bache, Hans Basbell and Carl-Erik Lindberg, editors)	Jyh Wee Sew	214-217
Interaction and grammar (Elinor Ochs, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Sandra Thompson, editors)	Jyh Wee Sew	217-218

Notes, comments and replies

A rejoinder to Siegel's review of Linguistic ecology

Peter Mühlhäusler

219-225

Publications on Australian languages, 1997 Geraldine Triffitt 227-233

Abstracts

The voiceless fricatives [s] and [h] in Erromangan: One phoneme, two, or one and a bit?

Terry Crowley

Abstract: While s and h in Erromangan can be shown to contrast, there is also a considerable amount of both free variation and complementary distribution between them, which would be consistent with the two being co-allophones of a single phonemic segment. This paper examines the conditioning provided by the linguistic environment, as well as the social constraints on the occurrence of these phones, and in particular examines the difference between religious and secular usage, as well as writing and speech. This situation reflects an intermediate stage in a shift from s to h. While many would not recognize conceptual problems with a resulting 'semi-phonemic' contrast, such a situation certainly poses real methodological problems in actual description. Surprisingly few accounts of languages spoken in small-scale societies seem to address these kinds of issues in detail, and this account aims to partly fill this gap.

The grammaticalization of impact: Bang and slap in English

N. Riemer

Abstract: English impact words like bang and slap synchronically undergo grammaticalization into modifiers of prepositional phrases in expressions like bang on time or slap into the fence. The origin of these uses is found in contexts like the explosion went bang over our heads, where the ideophonic character of the impact form first brings it into a context which can seed reanalysis and, as a result, grammaticalization. Examination of the stages of this process documents several features of grammaticalization, specifically the lack of coordination between semantic and categorial development, and the extent to which 'extraneous' features of lexemes like ideophony can interfere with the usual patterns of markedness that determine the susceptibility of forms to be grammaticalized.

An acoustic comparison between New Zealand and Australian English vowels

Catherine I. Watson, Jonathan Harrington & Zoe Evans

Abstract: This study presents an acoustic comparison between New Zealand English (NZE) and Australian English (AE) citation-form monophthongs and diphthongs. Formant frequencies were calculated and the data were labelled for vowel target position. Four main kinds of analysis were carried out: F1/F2 formant plots of monophthongs, onglides in vowels exemplified by HEED and WHO'D, formant trajectories of rising diphthongs, and formant trajectories of falling diphthongs. Consistent with other studies, we find the major differences in the NZE and AE vowel spaces are the centralizing and lowering of NZE HID and HOOD, and the raising of the NZE front and high vowels. The major difference in the diphthongs is the HERE/HAIR merger occurring in NZE but not AE. Contrary to other studies we find both HEED and WHO'D in NZE have long onglides and that the extent of these onglides is similar to those in AE. Proposals are included for a modification to the transcription system of NZE.

Last update: 22 April 2000
Comments to Tim Curnow