Spearing the Emu Drinking

Subordination and the Adjoined Relative Clause in Wambaya* Some aspects of this paper were presented at the Blackwood workshop on subordination in Australian languages, March 2002. I would like to thank the participants of that workshop for helpful feedback, and particularly Nick Evans, Ian Green, Mary Laughren, Nick Piper, Nick Reid, Jean-Christophe Verstraete and the anonymous AJL reviewers for discussions, comments and suggestions that have helped shape and

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8047530
AutoresRachel Nordlinger (0000-0003-4126-8022, Center for Applied Linguistics, autor de correspondencia)
Año2006
Volumen26
Número1
Páginas5-29
Fecha de publicación2006-03-16
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAustralian Journal of Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0726-8602 • E-ISSN: 1469-2996
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07268600500531610
OpenAlexW186731783
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas15
Referencias citadas36

Studies of subordination in Australian Aboriginal languages have been heavily influenced by Hale's foundational paper on the ‘adjoined relative clause’—a non-embedded, multifunctional subordinate clause type found in Warlpiri and a ‘large number of Australian languages’ [Hale K 1976 Hale, K. 1976. “‘The adjoined relative clause in Australia’”. In Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages, Edited by: Dixon, RMW. 78–105. AIAS Canberra. [Google Scholar] ‘The adjoined relative clause in Australia’ in RMW Dixon (ed.) Grammatical Categories in Australian Languages AIAS Canberra: 78–105 at 78]. Since this paper, almost every Australian grammar makes some reference to this clause type, presenting a general picture of structural homogeneity across subordination structures in Australian languages, and leading to the general perception that Australian languages typically don't have syntactic embedding. In this paper I present an analysis of subordinate clauses in Wambaya, arguing that these share many features of Hale's ‘adjoined relative clause’ while still being clearly subordinate. The differences between subordinate clauses in Warlpiri and Wambaya show that complex constructions in Australian languages can be structurally dissimilar while sharing many of the properties of the ‘adjoined relative clause’ type. I argue, therefore, that clause-combining in Australian languages may be more structurally heterogeneous than is traditionally assumed, and that a single analysis for complex sentences across a majority of Australian languages is quite likely inappropriate. This has implications for both the analysis and description of subordination in Australian Aboriginal languages, and for their relationship to the typological literature on subordination more generally

Non-finite clause · Relative clause · Subordination · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation