ELL: ICHL workshop on subgrouping in Australian languages.

[Claire Bowern]

[Apologies for cross-postings.]

Dear colleagues,

We are organising a workshop on subgrouping and reconstruction in
Australian languages, to be held during the 15th International Conference
on Historical Linguistics, to be hosted by La Trobe University, Melbourne,
from 14th - 17th August, 2001. (For conference details see
http://www.latrobe.edu.au/www/linguistics/conferences.html)

Briefly, the aim of the workshop is to examine currently accepted
Australian subgroupings from as many parts of the country as is possible,
to see if the groupings are likely to be genetic (that is, the similarities
between the languages are the result innovation during a period of common
envolution) or whether they more likely reflect a local linguistic area.
Such a workshop will make publicly available the evidence that supports
each subgroup. Most of the subgroups/families presupposed for Australia
date to lexico-statistical groupings done in the late 1960s (such as
O'Grady, Wurm and Hale's 1965 classification); we would like to use the
occasion of a major historical linguistics conference in Australia to
examine these proposed subgrouping in detail. By the end of the workshop we
hope to have assembled a collection of papers which examine these
subgrouping proposals from the point of view of traditional historical
linguistics - that is, through reconstruction, detailed etymology and the
separation of common innovation from borrowing. We hope this will move
comparative linguistics in Australia towards demonstrating to what extent
it is possible to justify genetic subgrouping and the use of the
comparative method. A number of scholars have raised doubts as to the
application of these methods in Australia (particularly with regard to
Pama-Ngunyan), and we would like to use this opportunity to see to what
extent their doubts are justified.

If you would like to participate in this workshop, it would be helpful to
us if you could let us know by email (to bowern at fas.harvard.edu or
harold.koch at anu.edu.au) as soon as possible, but no later than **31st
January 2001**. Please also include your subgroup/languges you would be
presenting evidence for or against, and your contact details. We encourage
papers dealing with both Pama-Nyungan and non-Pama-Nyungan subgroups. A
copy of the guidelines for participants is available from
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~bowern. Participation in this workshop does
not, of course, preclude you from submitting a paper to the main session.

Claire Bowern and Harold Koch

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