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Australian languages : their nature and development / R.M.W. Dixon
Bib ID 2213865
Format BookBook
Author Dixon, Robert M. W
Online Versions Table of contents
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Publisher description
Description New York : Cambridge University Press, 2002. 
xlii, 734 p. ; 24 cm. 
ISBN 0521473780 :  0521473780 
Series Cambridge language surveys 
Summary

Aboriginal people have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years, speaking about 250 languages. Through examination of published and unpublished materials on each of the individual languages, Professor Dixon surveys the ways in which the languages vary typologically and presents a profile of this long-established linguistic area. The areal distribution of most features is illustrated with more than 30 maps, showing that the languages tend to move in cyclic fashion with respect to many of the parameters. There is also an index of languages and language groups. Professor Dixon, a pioneering scholar in the field, brings a unique perspective to this diverse and complex material.

Full contents 1. The language situation in Australia -- 2. Modelling the language situation -- 3. Overview -- 4. Vocabulary -- 5. Case and other nominal suffixes -- 6. Verbs -- 7. Pronouns -- 8. Bound pronouns -- 9. Prefixing and fusion -- 10. Generic nouns, classifiers, genders and noun classes -- 11. Ergative/accusative morphological and syntactic profiles -- 12. Phonology -- 13. Genetic subgroups and small linguistic areas -- 14. Summary and conclusion. 
Notes

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Subjects Australian languages.  |  Australian languages - Grammar.
Details Collect From
NL 499.15 D621
Copy: hbk
Main Reading Room (Australian Collection)
-
N 499.15 D621
Copy: hbk
Main Reading Room (Australian Collection)
-