LFG and Austronesian languages

Abstract

Austronesian (AN) languages are known for their diverse grammatical characteristics in many typological and descriptive works. Their properties provide fertile grounds for testing assumptions in syntactic theories. In this chapter, we demonstrate that the parallel correspondence architecture of LFG can be used as a powerful tool for language-specific linguistic analysis, while also precisely capturing the cross-linguistic differences within and between Western and Eastern AN languages. LFG is flexible in incorporating analytical tests, such as adverbial insertion and clitic placement for examining constituency; reflexive binding, nominal marking and pronominal-indexing for syntactic status of an argument. Although AN languages have posed challenges to traditional syntactic notions of subject, as well as the mapping between grammatical relations and functions, we show that such multi-dimensional views of grammar, and projection design, can deal with these challenges efficiently, and also lead to a coherent comparative representation of AN languages for the purpose of tracking morphosyntactic stages according to their respective typological categories. Show more