Papers by Marie-Elaine van Egmond
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jun 13, 2023
Oxford University Press eBooks, Jun 13, 2023
I am happy to have the opportunity here to thank a number of people that have been of great help ... more I am happy to have the opportunity here to thank a number of people that have been of great help in completing this thesis. First and foremost, I want to thank Ida Toivonen and Kate Kearns, my supervisors. Ida's critical and challenging comments, and Kate's helpful and optimistic comments have been invaluable. I want to thank no less my friends, family and all the other people who filled in those numerous questionnaires (and who have been doing so for years!). Without them this research would not have been possible. Also thanks to those who supplied me with data that they picked up from the Dutch media. I especially want to express my gratitude to Heidi Quinn, for giving me a crash course on Minimalism, for her continuous availability, and for her infectious enthusiasm and passion for syntax. I have had a fantastic time in New Zealand, which, besides studying Linguistics at the University of Canterbury, is largely due to the wonderful people I met here. So cheers to you all! However, none of this would have been so fantastic without Henrik. I thank him for his inexhaustible support, optimism, encouragement and …. TLC.
VDM Verlag Dr. Müller eBooks, Jul 31, 2009
This book introduces a Dutch construction, called the Transition to Location Construction (TLC) (... more This book introduces a Dutch construction, called the Transition to Location Construction (TLC) (e.g. Hugo zong zich in de finale 'Hugo sang his way into the final'). A second Dutch way-construction, called the weg-construction (e.g. Hugo schopte zich een weg door de menigte 'Hugo kicked his way through the crowd'), is also investigated. Both constructions are parallel to the English way-construction, but in Dutch they have a different meaning and syntax: the weg-construction is ditransitive and denotes motion along a path, whereas the TLC is transitive and denotes a transition to a location, which does not involve the traversal of a path. The constructions are of interest, because they represent a mismatch in the syntax-semantics mapping: the verb has syntactic complements, but these are not semantic arguments of the verb. Both constructions are very productive and should therefore be taken seriously by any theory of syntax. A Minimalist account is offered here, but this is not without problems, as this theory is currently unable to account for the fact that it is not the verb that determines the complement configuration of the clause, but the construction itself.
I am happy to have the opportunity here to thank a number of people that have been of great help ... more I am happy to have the opportunity here to thank a number of people that have been of great help in completing this thesis. First and foremost, I want to thank Ida Toivonen and Kate Kearns, my supervisors. Ida's critical and challenging comments, and Kate's helpful and optimistic comments have been invaluable. I want to thank no less my friends, family and all the other people who filled in those numerous questionnaires (and who have been doing so for years!). Without them this research would not have been possible. Also thanks to those who supplied me with data that they picked up from the Dutch media. I especially want to express my gratitude to Heidi Quinn, for giving me a crash course on Minimalism, for her continuous availability, and for her infectious enthusiasm and passion for syntax. I have had a fantastic time in New Zealand, which, besides studying Linguistics at the University of Canterbury, is largely due to the wonderful people I met here. So cheers to you all! However, none of this would have been so fantastic without Henrik. I thank him for his inexhaustible support, optimism, encouragement and …. TLC.
De Gruyter eBooks, Oct 24, 2022
This thesis is a grammatical description of Enindhilyakwa, a non-Pama-Nyungan language spoken by ... more This thesis is a grammatical description of Enindhilyakwa, a non-Pama-Nyungan language spoken by over 1200 people living in the Groote Eylandt archipelago in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory, Australia. The language is classified as an isolate in O'Grady et al. (1966), and as "perhaps the most difficult of all Australian languages, with a very complex grammar" (Dixon 1980: 84; Capell 1942: 376). The aim of this thesis is to unravel this complex grammar, morphosyntax and phonology, and to place the language in the context of the neighbouring Arnhem Land languages. I propose that, although highly intricate, Enindhilyakwa morphology is also fairly regular and transparent, and, in fact, patterns much like the Gunwinyguan family of languages to its west. The areas of grammar covered in this thesis are: phonology (Chapter 2), nouns and adjectives (Chapter 3), verbal prefixes (Chapter 4), verb stem structures (Chapter 5), tense, aspect and mood marking on the verb (Chapter 6), the incorporation of body part and generic nominals into verbs and adjectives (Chapter 7), case marking (Chapter 8), and the genetic affiliation (Chapter 9). Enindhilyakwa phonology displays some radical departures from the typical Australian pattern, as well as from the typical Gunwinyguan pattern. However, the innovations can be traced back to an original proto-Gunwinyguan stock. Other grammatical features of this language are: (i) an elaborate noun classification system, involving noun classes, gender and generics incorporated into verbs and adjectives; (ii) an extensive degree of nominal derivation, including inalienable possession, alienable possession and deverbalising prefixes; (iii) four distinct pronominal prefix series on the verb to mark an equal number of moods; (iv) the possibility of most nominal case markers to be used as complementising cases on verbs; and (v) the pervasive use of body parts, which play a major role in naming and classifying inanimate objects. My foremost acknowledgement is to Julie Waddy, who, days before I contacted Jane Simpson at the University of Sydney enquiring about the options of doing a PhD, had made available all her material on the Enindhilyakwa language to the university, recommending that a student work on it. That student became me. I have greatly enjoyed learning about the complexities of this language, and to get a glimpse into the world of Australian languages-an opportunity I might never have had without Julie Waddy. It is an honour to thank the many Enindhilyakwa speakers who tried to teach me about their language:
International audienceno abstrac
International audienceno abstrac
Australian Journal of Linguistics, Oct 1, 2020
In this paper, we demonstrate that Anindilyakwa, spoken on Groote Eylandt, East Arnhem Land, is g... more In this paper, we demonstrate that Anindilyakwa, spoken on Groote Eylandt, East Arnhem Land, is genetically closely related to Wubuy (Gunwinyguan). Anindilyakwa has long been believed to be a family-level isolate, but by a rigorous application of the Comparative Method we uncover regular sound correspondences from lexical correspondence sets, reconstruct the sound system of the proto-language, and suggest how the proto-phoneme inventory derives from the proto-Gunwinyguan system through phonological innovations. Although it has been hinted before that Anindilyakwa and Wubuy are related and together with Ngandi form a subgroup, this hypothesis is not borne out here: while Wubuy and Ngandi have been shown to share a significant amount of core vocabulary and irregular verbal paradigms, Anindilyakwa and Wubuy appear to have undergone separate development for a considerable length of time. Moreover, Anindilyakwa has independently undergone extensive further sound changes, resulting in a language that is phonologically (though not lexically or grammatically) quite unusual in Australia.
ALS2011: Australian Linguistics …, 2011
The realis/irrealis distinction is known for structuring the TAM systems of a number of Papua-New... more The realis/irrealis distinction is known for structuring the TAM systems of a number of Papua-New Guinea and non-Pama-Nyungan (nPN) languages (eg Roberts 1990; Verstraete 2005). In the typological literature (Mauri & Sansò, in press) the realis is ...
Binominal Lexemes in Cross-Linguistic Perspective
I am happy to have the opportunity here to thank a number of people that have been of great help ... more I am happy to have the opportunity here to thank a number of people that have been of great help in completing this thesis. First and foremost, I want to thank Ida Toivonen and Kate Kearns, my supervisors. Ida's critical and challenging comments, and Kate's helpful and optimistic comments have been invaluable. I want to thank no less my friends, family and all the other people who filled in those numerous questionnaires (and who have been doing so for years!). Without them this research would not have been possible. Also thanks to those who supplied me with data that they picked up from the Dutch media. I especially want to express my gratitude to Heidi Quinn, for giving me a crash course on Minimalism, for her continuous availability, and for her infectious enthusiasm and passion for syntax. I have had a fantastic time in New Zealand, which, besides studying Linguistics at the University of Canterbury, is largely due to the wonderful people I met here. So cheers to you all! However, none of this would have been so fantastic without Henrik. I thank him for his inexhaustible support, optimism, encouragement and …. TLC.
This is the dataset that is referred to in the paper 'The genetic Position of Anindilyakwa... more This is the dataset that is referred to in the paper 'The genetic Position of Anindilyakwa'. It contains all the cognate words that have been uncovered between the North Australian languages Anindilyakwa, Wubuy and Ngandi.
Verbal classifiers, or incorporation into the verb of a generic nominal that is in apposition wit... more Verbal classifiers, or incorporation into the verb of a generic nominal that is in apposition with an external specific nominal, is a common feature in northern Australian languages. The incorporated generic is typically in S or O function. Nordlinger and Sadler (this volume) analyze the classifier as a member of a SUBJ or OBJ set, the other member being the co-referential external specific nominal. In Anindilyakwa incorporated apposition is also very common. However, classifiers in this language are not always in S or O function, but they can be associated with an adjunct too. These adjunct classifiers not only defy the typological generalization of the grammatical function of verbal classifiers, but they also pose a challenge to LFG. This is because the incorporated generic can be ambiguous in its grammatical function, so it is unclear what the lexical entry of a verb with an incorporated classifier, should look like.1
Verbal classifiers, or incorporation into the verb of a generic nominal that is in apposition wit... more Verbal classifiers, or incorporation into the verb of a generic nominal that is in apposition with an external specific nominal, is a common feature in northern Australian languages. The incorporated generic is typically in S or O function. Nordlinger and Sadler (this volume) analyze the classifier as a member of a SUBJ or OBJ set, the other member being the co-referential external specific nominal. In Anindilyakwa incorporated apposition is also very common. However, classifiers in this language are not always in S or O function, but they can be associated with an adjunct too. These adjunct classifiers not only defy the typological generalization of the grammatical function of verbal classifiers, but they also pose a challenge to LFG. This is because the incorporated generic can be ambiguous in its grammatical function, so it is unclear what the lexical entry of a verb with an incorporated classifier, should look like.
This book introduces a Dutch construction, called the Transition to Location Construction (TLC) (... more This book introduces a Dutch construction, called the Transition to Location Construction (TLC) (e.g. Hugo zong zich in de finale 'Hugo sang his way into the final'). A second Dutch way-construction, called the weg-construction (e.g. Hugo schopte zich een weg door de menigte 'Hugo kicked his way through the crowd'), is also investigated. Both constructions are parallel to the English way-construction, but in Dutch they have a different meaning and syntax: the weg-construction is ditransitive and denotes motion along a path, whereas the TLC is transitive and denotes a transition to a location, which does not involve the traversal of a path. The constructions are of interest, because they represent a mismatch in the syntax-semantics mapping: the verb has syntactic complements, but these are not semantic arguments of the verb. Both constructions are very productive and should therefore be taken seriously by any theory of syntax. A Minimalist account is offered here, but...
This thesis is a grammatical description of Enindhilyakwa, a non-Pama-Nyungan language spoken by ... more This thesis is a grammatical description of Enindhilyakwa, a non-Pama-Nyungan language spoken by over 1200 people living in the Groote Eylandt archipelago in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory, Australia. The language is classified as an isolate in O'Grady et al. (1966), and as "perhaps the most difficult of all Australian languages, with a very complex grammar" (Dixon 1980: 84; Capell 1942: 376). The aim of this thesis is to unravel this complex grammar, morphosyntax and phonology, and to place the language in the context of the neighbouring Arnhem Land languages. I propose that, although highly intricate, Enindhilyakwa morphology is also fairly regular and transparent, and, in fact, patterns much like the Gunwinyguan family of languages to its west. The areas of grammar covered in this thesis are: phonology (Chapter 2), nouns and adjectives (Chapter 3), verbal prefixes (Chapter 4), verb stem structures (Chapter 5), tense, aspect and mood marking on the verb (Chapter 6), the incorporation of body part and generic nominals into verbs and adjectives (Chapter 7), case marking (Chapter 8), and the genetic affiliation (Chapter 9). Enindhilyakwa phonology displays some radical departures from the typical Australian pattern, as well as from the typical Gunwinyguan pattern. However, the innovations can be traced back to an original proto-Gunwinyguan stock. Other grammatical features of this language are: (i) an elaborate noun classification system, involving noun classes, gender and generics incorporated into verbs and adjectives; (ii) an extensive degree of nominal derivation, including inalienable possession, alienable possession and deverbalising prefixes; (iii) four distinct pronominal prefix series on the verb to mark an equal number of moods; (iv) the possibility of most nominal case markers to be used as complementising cases on verbs; and (v) the pervasive use of body parts, which play a major role in naming and classifying inanimate objects. My foremost acknowledgement is to Julie Waddy, who, days before I contacted Jane Simpson at the University of Sydney enquiring about the options of doing a PhD, had made available all her material on the Enindhilyakwa language to the university, recommending that a student work on it. That student became me. I have greatly enjoyed learning about the complexities of this language, and to get a glimpse into the world of Australian languages-an opportunity I might never have had without Julie Waddy. It is an honour to thank the many Enindhilyakwa speakers who tried to teach me about their language:
This landmark publication brings together 26 papers on reflexive constructions in languages from ... more This landmark publication brings together 26 papers on reflexive constructions in languages from around the world, covering all continents and diverse language types. Even though reflexive constructions have often been discussed from a variety of angles, this is the first edited volume of its kind. All the chapters are based on original data collected by the authors, and they are broadly comparable through careful terminological usage, even though each paper is primarily based on language-internal evidence. The volume also contains two introductory chapters by the editors that set the stage and lay out the main comparative concepts, as well as one concluding chapter that presents generalizations
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Papers by Marie-Elaine van Egmond