LINGUIST List 13.166

Tue Jan 22 2002

Books: Australian Languages

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomilinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Joyce Reid, Australian Languages by R.M.W. Dixon

Australian Languages

R.M.W. Dixon, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia


Aboriginal people have been in Australia for at least 40,000 years,
speaking about 250 languages. Through examination of published and
unpublished materials on each of the individual languages, Dixon
surveys the ways in which the languages vary typologically and
presents a profile of this long-established linguistic area. The areal
distribution of most features is illustrated with more than 30 maps
and an index of languages and language groups is provided.

Contents:

1. The language situation in Australia; 
2. Modelling the language situation; 
3. Overview; 
4. Vocabulary; 
5. Case and other nominal suffixes; 
6. Verbs; 
7. Pronouns; 
8. Bound pronouns; 
9. Prefixing and fusion; 
10.Generic nouns, classifiers, genders and noun classes; 
11.Ergative/accusative morphological and syntactic profiles; 
12.Phonology; 
13.Genetic subgroups and small linguistic area; 
14.Summary and conclusion.

Cambridge Language Surveys

2002/c. 800 pp./3 line diagrams/33 maps/38 tables
0-521-47378-0/Hb/List: $90.00*

Cambridge University Press
http://www.cup.org