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Big words, small phrases: Mismatches between pause units and the polysynthetic word in Dalabon

Evans, Nicholas; Fletcher, Janet; Ross, Belinda

Description

This article uses instrumental data from natural speech to examine the phenomenon of pause placement within the verbal word in Dalabon, a polysynthetic Australian language of Arnhem Land. Though the phenomenon is incipient and in two sample texts occurs in only around 4% of verbs, there are clear possibilities for interrupting the grammatical word by pause after the pronominal prefix and some associated material at the left edge, though these within-word pauses are significantly shorter, on...[Show more]

dc.contributor.authorEvans, Nicholas
dc.contributor.authorFletcher, Janet
dc.contributor.authorRoss, Belinda
dc.date.accessioned2015-12-07T22:26:05Z
dc.identifier.issn0024-3949
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/21611
dc.description.abstractThis article uses instrumental data from natural speech to examine the phenomenon of pause placement within the verbal word in Dalabon, a polysynthetic Australian language of Arnhem Land. Though the phenomenon is incipient and in two sample texts occurs in only around 4% of verbs, there are clear possibilities for interrupting the grammatical word by pause after the pronominal prefix and some associated material at the left edge, though these within-word pauses are significantly shorter, on average, than those between words. Within-word pause placement is not random, but is restricted to certain affix boundaries; it requires that the paused-after material be at least dimoraic, and that the remaining material in the verbal word be at least disyllabic. Bininj Gun-wok, another polysynthetic language closely related to Dalabon, does not allow pauses to interrupt the verbal word, and the Dalabon development appears to be tied up with certain morphological innovations that have increased the proportion of closed syllables in the pronominal prefix zone of the verb. Though only incipient and not yet phonologized, pause placement in Dalabon verbs suggests a phonology-driven route by which polysynthetic languages may ultimately become less morphologically complex by fracturing into smaller units.
dc.publisherDe Gruyter
dc.rightshttp://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0024-3949/..."author can archive publisher's version/PDF. 12 months embargo" from SHERPA/RoMEO site (as at 25/10/16).
dc.sourceLinguistics: an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences
dc.subjectKeywords: Australian Languages (06440); Language Typology (44450); Morphemes (55350); Morphophonemics (55550); Pauses (63100); Syllable Structure (86490); Word Structure (98300)
dc.titleBig words, small phrases: Mismatches between pause units and the polysynthetic word in Dalabon
dc.typeJournal article
local.description.notesImported from ARIES
local.identifier.citationvolume46
dc.date.issued2008
local.identifier.absfor200408 - Linguistic Structures (incl. Grammar, Phonology, Lexicon, Semantics)
local.identifier.absfor200319 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages
local.identifier.ariespublicationu9313127xPUB17
local.type.statusPublished Version
local.contributor.affiliationEvans, Nicholas, College of Asia and the Pacific, ANU
local.contributor.affiliationFletcher, Janet, University of Melbourne
local.contributor.affiliationRoss, Belinda, University of Melbourne
local.bibliographicCitation.issue1
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage89
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage129
local.identifier.doi10.1515/LING.2008.004
dc.date.updated2015-12-07T09:44:31Z
local.identifier.scopusID2-s2.0-40549115279
local.identifier.thomsonID000254028200004
dcterms.accessRightsOpen Access
CollectionsANU Research Publications

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