LINGUIST List 15.2468

Tue Sep 7 2004

Books: Language Description/Nyangumarta: Sharp

Editor for this issue: Neil Salmond <neillinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. jmanley, Nyangumarta: Sharp

Title: Nyangumarta
Subtitle: A language of the Pilbara region of Western Australia
Series Title: Pacific Linguistics

Publication Year: 2004
Publisher:	Pacific Linguistics
		http://pacling.anu.edu.au/

Author: Janet Catherine Sharp

Paperback: ISBN: 0858835290, Pages: 429 pp, Price: AUS $109.00
	 Comment: In Australia A$119.90 (inc. GST)

			
Abstract:

This book is a description of the Nyangumarta language spoken by
several hundred marrngu 'people' in the north-west of Western
Australia. The description is based on material which the author
collected between 1983 and 1997. The book includes descriptions of the
phonology, the morphology and word classes including the pronominal
systems. It also includes detailed descriptions of Nyangumarta main
and complex clauses.

Nyangumarta is of general typological interest. There are many
reasons for this. Firstly, the status of word which emerges
necessarily in the description of Nyangumarta verbal morphology
contributes to the notion of there being a mismatch between what is
regarded as a phonological word and what is regarded as a grammatical
word in some languages. In Nyangumarta the paradigms of verbal
pronouns illustrate a division between morphemes which are
phonologically bound and those which are phonologically free; although
both sets are grammatically bound to the verb. To add to this there is
a class of derivational verbs which appear to be divided according to
their phonological/grammatical word status. The inchoative and stative
verbs are analysed as having phonological word status whereas the
monosyllabic derivational verbs such as the affective and causative
and the semantically 'empty' -pi are analysed as bound verbalisers.

The phonological system of Nyangumarta is of interest because its
productive system of vowel assimilation within the verbal morphology
is one of the most elaborate of all the Australian languages.


Lingfield(s):	Language Description
		
Subject Language(s):	Nyangumarta (Language code: NNA)
		
Written In:	English (Language Code: ENG)


 See this book announcement on our website:
 http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=11352.