A description of the Emmi language of the Northern Territory of Australia
Date
1998
Authors
Ford, Lysbeth Julie
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This thesis provides the first detailed description of Emmi, a dying
language spoken by about two dozen adults who are based at Belyuen on the
Cox Peninsula west of Darwin.
Chapter One first explains the geographical, historical and social
context of the language and its speakers. It describes my fieldwork
methodology, and provides an overview of the Emmi language and its
typological singularities. It provides a critique of earlier work on the language
and summarises what is known about the relationship of Emmi to neighbouring
languages.
Chapter Two describes the segmental phonology of the language. It
provides evidence for the existence of a voicing contrast between stops and the
existence of two phonemic fricatives. It shows how the stress patterns of
complex morphemes which have been subsumed into the verb reveal that they
were once independent words.
Chapter Three describes the nominal morphology of the language, with
particular reference to the role of adnominal enclitics as NP relators. It explains
the function of the generic nouns awa 'meat' and miya 'edible plant, the five
ways used to express the possessive relation, and the overlap between
adjectives and nouns on the one hand, and adjectives and verbs on the other.
Chapter Four explains verb structure, and analyses the morphology of
the obligatory components: auxiliary verb, coverbs, bound pronominals, bound
number words.
Chapter Five examines the possible combinations of auxiliary and
coverb and works out the semantic and syntactic motivations for cooccurrence. Chapter Six describes nominal incorporation, distinguishing between
lexical and syntactic incorporation and showing how lexically incorporated
bodyparts function as metaphors and classifiers for entities v1ith the same shape
as the bodypart.
Chapter Seven describes the functions of the fourteen propositional
enclitics.
Chapter Eight describes the syntax of simple and complex clauses with
particular focus on serial ronstructions. It shows how the major intransitive
auxiliary verbs have been polygrammaticised to provide aspectual information.
Appendix A comprises Basedow's word-lists of the language, dating
from 1906. Appendix B gives Capell's raw Ami data, dating from the 1950s.
Appendix C sets out the auxiliary verb paradigms. Appendix D consists of six
texts.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Collections
Source
Type
Thesis (PhD)
Book Title
Entity type
Access Statement
License Rights
Restricted until
Downloads
File
Description