Language Diversity

Language Diversity

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Language Diversity episodes

  • Our Language in Your Hands
    Dr Mark Turin (Linguist, Yale University) on his work preserving the languages of the Himilayan region.
    Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    20 min
  • Our Language in Your Hands
    Dr Mark Turin (Linguist, Yale University) on his work preserving the languages of the Himilayan region.
    Copyright 2013 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    20 min
  • Voice, Valence and Focus in Makassarese
    Dr Anthony Jukes (Australian Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Research on Language Diversity, La Trobe University) on Makassarese, a language of South Sulawesi (Indonesia) spoken by up to 2 million people. It has a set of verb prefixes cognate with symmetrical voice-marking morphology in other Austronesian languages of Indonesia and the Philippines. However unlike many of these languages Makassarese has an asymmetrical voice system, involving a passive prefix opposed to several ‘active’ constructions, including one which it is tempting to call ‘anti passive’ given the ergative alignment of pronominal cross-referencing. This paper examines the system and will discuss why the anti passive solution is misleading, showing that this construction is sensitive to discourse and real world factors, hinging on the problematic status of an indefinite Undergoer.
    Copyright 2012 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    1 hr 2 min
  • Voice, Valence and Focus in Makassarese (handout)
    Dr Anthony Jukes (Australian Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Research on Language Diversity, La Trobe University) on Makassarese, a language of South Sulawesi (Indonesia) spoken by up to 2 million people. It has a set of verb prefixes cognate with symmetrical voice-marking morphology in other Austronesian languages of Indonesia and the Philippines. However unlike many of these languages Makassarese has an asymmetrical voice system, involving a passive prefix opposed to several ‘active’ constructions, including one which it is tempting to call ‘anti passive’ given the ergative alignment of pronominal cross-referencing. This paper examines the system and will discuss why the anti passive solution is misleading, showing that this construction is sensitive to discourse and real world factors, hinging on the problematic status of an indefinite Undergoer.
    Copyright 2012 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    0 min
  • Incorporation is Neither Syntactic nor 'Lexical'
    Dr Brett Baker (Languages and Linguistics, University of Melbourne) studies Australian indigenous languages. In the Australian language Wubuy (aka Nunggubuyu), as in other Gunwinyguan languages, we find that nouns and some other kinds of constituents (quantifiers) can occur inside the word that hosts the main verb root, along with the morphology of agreement and tense. Various tests show that these incorporated nouns must be accessible to syntax (for instance, they can be externally modified, and coordinated with other nouns). On the other hand, there are well-known reasons for doubting that the process is fully syntactic. I propose an analysis of incorporation in Wubuy within a constructionist model of the lexicon (e.g. Jackendoff 2002, Booij 2010), wherein we can capture both the rule-governed and more idiosyncratic aspects of this phenomenon.
    Copyright 2012 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    1 hr 12 min
  • The Study of Languages
    Dr Stephen Morey (Centre for Research on Language Diversity, La Trobe University) on how languages are studied and preserved.
    Copyright 2012 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    18 min
  • Globalisation and the Study of Dialects
    Dr Howard Manns (Linguistics, Monash University) revisits the study of dialects in contact in light of the forces of globalisation. How the innovative use of traditional methodologies can inform the investigation of dialects in modern, urban environments. This is done by reviewing how three 'waves' of sociolinguistic inquiry informed a recent investigation of dialects in Java, Indonesia.
    Copyright 2012 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    55 min
  • Variable Ergativity in Pamosu
    Ian Tupper (Centre for Research on Linguistic Diversity, La Trobe University) on agentive case marking in Pamosu, a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.
    Copyright 2012 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    50 min
  • Variable Ergativity in Pamosu (handout)
    Ian Tupper (Centre for Research on Linguistic Diversity, La Trobe University) on agentive case marking in Pamosu, a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea.
    Copyright 2012 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    50 min
  • Nasal and Oral Spreading in Aguaruna (Jivaroan)
    Dr Simon Overall (Centre for Research on Linguistic Diversity, La Trobe University) describes complementary processes of nasal and oral spreading in Aguaruna, a Jivaroan language of north Peru, and addresses the theoretical problems involved in analysing the data.
    Copyright 2012 La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Contact for permissions.
    55 min

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