
A Grammar of Bilinarra
An Australian Aboriginal Language of the Northern Territory
- 558 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
A Grammar of Bilinarra
An Australian Aboriginal Language of the Northern Territory
About this book
Felicity Meakins was awarded the Kenneth L. Hale Award 2021
by the Linguistic Society of America (LSA) for outstanding work on the documentation of endangered languages
This volume provides the first comprehensive description of Bilinarra, a Pama-Nyungan language of the Victoria River District of the Northern Territory (Australia). Bilinarra is a highly endangered language with only one speaker remaining in 2012 and no child learners. The materials on which this grammatical description is based were collected by the authors over a 20 year period from the last first-language speakers of the language, most of whom have since passed away. Bilinarra is a member of the Ngumpin subgroup of Pama-Nyungan which forms a part of the Ngumpin-Yapa family, which also includes Warlpiri. It is non-configurational, with nominals commonly omitted, arguments cross-referenced by pronominal clitics and word order grammatically free and largely determined by information structure. In this grammatical description much attention is paid to its morphosyntax, including case morphology, the pronominal clitic system and complex predicates. A particular strength of the volume is the provision of sound files for example sentences, allowing the reader access to the language itself. This volume will be of interest to typologists and all with an interest in Australian languages, language endangerment and language documentation.
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Information
Table of contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of tables
- List of figures
- List of abbreviations
- Conventions used in transcription and glossing
- Conventions used to indicate source of data
- Recording metadata
- Map
- 1 The language and its speakers
- 2 Phonology
- 3 Parts of speech
- 4 Nominals 1: Nouns, case, adnominal and derivational morphology
- 5 Nominals 2: Demonstratives, interrogatives, directionals and possessives
- 5.1.2.1 -rra PLural
- 6 Pronouns
- 7 Inflecting verbs and coverbs
- 8 Syntax of simple sentences
- 9 Complex sentences
- Appendix
- Text 1 Language Learning Time Clara Juduwurr
- Text 2 Childhood Clara Juduwurr
- Text 3 Life Story Doris Warnmal
- Text 4 Ceremony Time Hector Waitbiari
- Text 5 The Travels of the Nangangari Ivy Kulngari
- Text 6 Fishing around Pigeon Hole Ivy Kulngari
- Text 7 My Cats and the Snake Kathleen Juduwurr
- Text 8 Lardaj Dreaming Ivy Kulngari
- Text 9 Barrjirda Dreaming Ivy Kulngari
- Word list
- List of suffixes
- List of enclitics
- References
- Index of subjects
- Index of suffixes and clitics by gloss