30.33, Review: Thayore; Typology: Gaby (2017)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-33. Fri Jan 04 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.33, Review: Thayore; Typology: Gaby (2017)

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Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2019 21:55:39
From: John Mansfield [jbmansfield at gmail.com]
Subject: A Grammar of Kuuk Thaayorre

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/29/29-1787.html

AUTHOR: Alice R. Gaby
TITLE: A Grammar of Kuuk Thaayorre
SERIES TITLE: Mouton Grammar Library [MGL]
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2017

REVIEWER: John Mansfield, University of Melbourne

SUMMARY 

This is the most comprehensive grammatical description yet published for any
of the Paman languages, which occupy the Cape York Peninsula in north-eastern
Australia. Gaby provides careful analysis of structural roles, distributional
categories and discourse function in Kuuk Thaayorre sentences. This grammar
will therefore be of particular interest to specialists in syntax, semantics
and pragmatics. The language has several typologically unusual features, such
as demonstratives marked for cardinal directionality, subtractive morphology,
and vowel-less syllables. 

Chapter 1 gives the background to the book, and describes the social,
historical and geographic context of the language. Kuuk Thaayorre (KT) has
some 250 speakers, most of whom live in the town of Pormpuraaw, alongside
speakers of Wik Mungkan and English. Few children are fluent in KT, so it must
be regarded as severely endangered. Gaby provides some welcome details about
how she developed relationships with KT speakers, which is an important and
often under-discussed element of field linguistics with minority indigenous
communities.

Chapter 2 describes the phonology, focusing on the phoneme inventory and
syllable shapes. Gaby proposes word-final syllables that consist of a single
consonant, this being either a nasal, a liquid (both expected syllabic
consonants), or more unusually, the dental obstruent /t̪/. KT also has
unusually heavy codas (cf. Gordon, 2016, p. 91). There are only simple onsets,
and in word-initial position a rather restricted range of onsets; but codas
may have two or three consonants, including double-obstruent codas /tp, kp/.
Gaby does not discuss, however, the principle by which such codas can be
distinguished from a simple coda followed by a consonant-only syllable, i.e.
/t.p, k.p/. It is also notable that Gaby’s proposed /kp/ coda appears to
violate a claim of feature-theory, that all complex codas must contain a
coronal (Yip, 1991). The KT lexicon includes many monosyllables, and a
predominance of consonant-final stems. Gaby notes that these are unusual for
an Australian language, based on Dixon’s (1980) classic delineation of the
‘typical’ Australian word shape, though Dixon’s phonological generalisations
do not hold for several other languages of northern Australia (Mansfield,
2019). Gaby also describes a typologically unusual reduplication that infixes
a syllable rhyme, which is further analysed elsewhere (Gaby & Inkelas, 2014;
Round, 2013).

Chapter 3 gives an overview of the word classes, thus serving as an entrée to
the morphological and syntactic descriptions that make up the remainder of the
book.

Chapter 4 describes nominal morphology, which is predominantly case
suffixation. KT has a ‘split ergative’ system of the type found in various
other Pama-Nyungan languages, whereby personal pronouns use the same forms for
intransitive S and transitive A roles (i.e. ‘nominative–accusative’
alignment), while common nouns use the same forms for S and P roles (i.e.
‘ergative–absolutive’ alignment). Following Goddard (1982), Gaby argues that
the best analysis is one where there are distinct ERG, NOM and ACC cases for
all nominals, with different patterns of homophony in different nominal
classes. However KT offers additional puzzles. For one, case is marked only at
the end of an NP, rather than agreeing on all nominals, suggesting that it is
a phrase-level enclitic structure. But the formal markers of case inflection
involve lexically specified allomorphy, with four declension classes,
suggesting a word-level morphological operation. The theoretical implications
of this are discussed in further literature (Anderson, Brown, Gaby, & Lecarme,
2005). KT case inflection is also interesting because it involves subtractive
marking of NOM/ACC, for which Gaby provides a convincing historical
explanation. This chapter also describes a highly multifunctional DAT case,
and the prolific use of body-part nouns in nominal compounding.

Chapter 5 is on pronouns and demonstratives. Personal pronouns have full forms
and reduced enclitic forms, with enclitics allowing stacking of multiple
pronominal arguments, though the data available on this is somewhat sparse.
There are also ‘ignorative’ pronouns, which cover a range of functions
including interrogative, indefinite, and vagueness. KT is rich in
demonstratives. There is a three-way spatial distinction – speaker-proximate,
addressee-proximate, distal – with some uses reflecting discourse structure
rather than physical space.

Chapter 6 is on noun phrase syntax, with KT exhibiting a fairly complex NP
structure. There are distinct categories of generic noun, specific noun and
adjective, though some lexemes can fill more than one of these roles. NP
definiteness and specificity need not be marked, though both +def and +spec
can be marked using demonstratives and pronouns respectively. Generic nouns
often serve as anaphoric links to established discourse referents.

Chapters 7 and 8 are on verbal inflection and derivation respectively. Verbs
are marked for TAM inflection by suffixation, or in some cases again by
subtractive morphology, which can be traced to KT’s tendency to delete final
vowels. Gaby provides fairly detailed semantic analysis of the tense and
aspect categories. In verbal derivation, there are reflexive and reciprocal
affixes, and a single valence-increasting suffix, which adds a NOM/ACC
argument that can have a wide range of semantic interpretations. There are two
associated motion derivations, and again (as with nominal bases) prolific use
of body-part nominals to create compound lexemes.

Chapter 9 is on particles and adverbs, thus covering a somewhat disparate
collection of forms. Gaby provides careful accounts of the multifunctionality
of some forms, which seems more accurate than attempting to posit a single
basic meaning that would account for all uses. KT adverbs include a rich set
of ‘directional adverbs’, which are similar to the celebrated directional
system of Guugu Yimithirr (Levinson, 2003, p. 113ff), though if anything more
elaborate. Directionals specify degrees of distance, orientation to/from the
deictic centre, orientation with respect to cardinal directions, as well as
the Edward River. They are morphologically complex, e.g. ya-rr-iparr-op
‘away-towards-south-river’, and are frequently used in KT discourse.

Chapters 10, 11 and 12 are on clause structure. Verbal arguments are freely
elided, which means that the distinction between intransitive, transitive and
other clause types is identified by the NP cases with which a verb may
combine, rather than those with which it must combine. On this basis, Gaby
argues for a taxonomy of verb classes based on their potential case frames.
Copula constructions optionally use a postural verb to carry TAM information,
and Gaby provides interesting details on the semantic and aspectual dimensions
of these postural verbs. KT has subordinate clauses marked by an infinitival
verb form, and Gaby shows that there are distinct word-order patterns for
relative and subordinate clauses. Gaby argues that finite verbs are also
sometimes used as a subordination strategy, adducing prosodic and word-order
evidence for this claim. 
EVALUATION

This is a comprehensive and careful grammar, covering several phenomena that
are otherwise under-described, and some which present challenges to linguistic
theory. The primary data in examples is both generous and judicious, with the
description of each structure supported by a set of examples illustrating the
formal and functional range. Gaby offers nuanced discussion of semantic
interpretation and pragmatic considerations, which makes the text highly
readable, and elevates it above the ‘catalogue of forms’ style that can be
difficult to avoid in grammatical description. Another strength is Gaby’s
willingness to consider alternative analyses. On several topics, Gaby
discusses the merits of an alternative approach, and explicitly states why she
has chosen her particular analysis, rather than asking us to take it on faith.
This is a welcome recognition that grammatical analysis involves judgment and
discretion, and that the labels and categories applied in the analysis are
interpretive artifacts, rather than raw data. 

There is little to critique in this book. The only flaws I noted were in
superficial presentation: there seemed to be some mis-matches in the numbering
of examples and their mention in the text; citations of monographs would in
some cases have benefitted from a page number reference. Personally, I would
have liked to see the typological significance of the phonotactics explored
more – though I suspect that every linguist has some ‘pet topic’ in which
reference grammars leave them wanting more. These minor critiques only rate a
mention because the scholarship and writing of this grammar is of such
consistently high quality.

REFERENCES

Anderson, S. R., Brown, L., Gaby, A., & Lecarme, J. 2005. Life on the edge:
There’s morphology there after all! Lingue e Linguaggio, 5(1), 33–48.

Dixon, R. M. W. 1980. The languages of Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Gaby, A., & Inkelas, S. 2014. Reduplication in Kuuk Thaayorre. In R. Kager, J.
Grijzenhout, & K. Sebregts (Eds.), Where the principles fail (pp. 41–52).
Ridderkerk: Holland Ridderkerk. 

Goddard, C. 1982. Case systems and case marking in Australian languages: a new
interpretation. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 2, 167–196.

Gordon, M. K. 2016. Phonological typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Levinson, S. C. 2003. Space in language and cognition: Explorations in
cognitive diversity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Mansfield, J. B. 2019. Murrinpatha morphology and phonology. De Gruyter
Mouton.

Round, E. R. 2013. Why reduplicate VC? Kuuk Thaayorre answers a lingering
question. Presented at the Australian Linguistics Society.

Yip, M. 1991. Coronals, consonant clusters and the coda condition. In C.
Paradis & J.-F. Prunet (Eds.), Phonetics and phonology (Vol. Volume 2, The
special status of coronals: Internal and external evidence, pp. 61–78). San
Diego: Academic Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

John Mansfield is a Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Melbourne,
specialising in Australian languages. Mansfield’s research interests include
language change, morphology, phonology and the relationships between
linguistic structure and social structure.





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