Erich Round
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 2234768 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Erich Round |
| NOMBRES | Erich |
| APELLIDO | Round |
| FIRMA | ROUND E |
| AFILIACIONES | The University of Queensland |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7533-8052 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 23 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 94 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 23 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2004 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
The natural stability of autonomous morphology
Autonomous morphology, such as inflection class systems and paradigmatic distribution patterns, is widespread and diachronically resilient in natural language. Why this should be so has remained unclear given that autonomous morphology imposes learning costs, offers no clear benefit relative to its absence and could easily be removed by the analogical forces which are constantly reshaping it. Here we propose an explanation for the resilience of a…
Ancient languages and algorithms
Historical linguistics has experienced an upsurge in methodological innovation. However, owing to the constraints of contemporary publication, these innovations often appear in print in a format which is technical, dense and less than fully accessible. Moreover, because these innovations are still young and have often arisen in other fields before being translated to historical linguistics, our own discipline has yet to accumulate a stock of trus…
Phonotactics
The phonologies of Australia can now be investigated with new tools for large-scale phonological typology. Here we draw on an empirical dataset covering three hundred thousand lexical entries from over two hundred and fifty language varieties, which enables us to understand continent-level phonological variation in significantly more detail than previously. Variation is observed in terms of major genealogical groupings of languages, comparing the…
Canonical phonology and criterial conflicts
Typologists strive to compare like with like, but four dilemmas make this challenging in phonology: (1) the non-uniqueness of phonological analysis; and the existence of (2) multiple levels of analysis; (3) multiple theories of phonology; and (4) analytical interdependencies between phonological phenomena. Here I argue that the four dilemmas can be coherently related, and then addressed together. I introduce the concept of criterial conflicts, de…
Frequent violation of the sonority sequencing principle in hundreds of languages
The Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) is a fundamental governing principle of syllable structure; however, its details remain contested. This study aims to clarify the empirical status of the SSP in a cross-linguistic study of 496 languages. We adopt a phonetically-grounded definition of sonority – acoustic intensity – and examine how many languages contain SSP-violating clusters word-initially and word-finally. We consider the treatment of com…
Analogy in Inflection
Analogy has returned to prominence in the field of inflectional morphology as a basis for new explanations of inflectional productivity. Here we review the rising profile of analogy, identifying key theoretical and methodological developments, areas of success, and priorities for future work. In morphological theory, work within so-called abstractive approaches places analogy at the center of productive processes, though significant conceptual an…
Challenges of sampling and how phylogenetic comparative methods help
Phylogenetic comparative methods are new in our field and are shrouded, for most linguists, in at least a little mystery. Yet the path that led to their discovery in comparative biology is so similar to the methodological history of balanced sampling, that it is only an accident of history that they were not discovered by a linguistic typologist. Here we clarify the essential logic behind phylogenetic comparative methods and their fundamental rel…
Areal pressure in grammatical evolution
This article investigates the evolutionary and spatial dynamics of typological characters in 117 Indo-European languages. We partition types of change (i.e., gain or loss) for each variant according to whether they bring about a simplification in morphosyntactic patterns that must be learned, whether they are neutral (i.e., neither simplifying nor introducing complexity) or whether they introduce a more complex pattern. We find that changes which…
Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
Almost universally, diachronic sound patterns of languages reveal evidence of both regular and irregular sound changes, yet an exception may be the languages of Australia. Here we discuss a long-observed and striking characteristic of diachronic sound patterns in Australian languages, namely the scarcity of evidence they present for regular sound change. Since the regularity assumption is fundamental to the comparative method, Australian language…
Phylogenetic signal in phonotactics
Phylogenetic methods have broad potential in linguistics beyond tree inference. Here, we show how a phylogenetic approach opens the possibility of gaining historical insights from entirely new kinds of linguistic data – in this instance, statistical phonotactics. We extract phonotactic data from 112 Pama-Nyungan vocabularies and apply tests for phylogenetic signal, quantifying the degree to which the data reflect phylogenetic history. We test thr…
Comparability and measurement in typological science
Linguistics, and typology in particular, can have a bright future. We justify this optimism by discussing comparability from two angles. First, we take the opportunity presented by this special issue of Linguistic Typology to pause for a moment and make explicit some of the logical underpinnings of typological sciences, linguistics included, which we believe are worth reminding ourselves of. Second, we give a brief illustration of comparison, and…
The theory of feature systems
Features are central to all major theories of syntax and morphology. Yet it can be a non-trivial task to determine the inventory of features and their values for a given language, and in particular to determine whether to postulate one feature or two in the same semantico-syntactic domain. We illustrate this from tense-aspect-mood (TAM) in Kayardild, and adduce principles for deciding in general between one-feature and two-feature analyses, there…
Universals of Split Argument Coding and Morphological Neutralization
Kala Lagaw Ya is the language of the western and central islands of the Torres Strait. It exhibits an extremely complex pattern of ‘split argument coding’ (‘split ergativity’), which has previously been considered typologically exceptional and problematic for widely discussed universals of argument coding dating back to work by Silverstein, Comrie and Dixon in the 1970s, and framed in terms of an ‘animacy’ or ‘nominal’ hierarchy. Furthermore, the…
Phonaesthemes in morphological theory
Particles
Chapter 10 examines particles, the Kayardild word class which escapes all inflection. True particles are distinguished from semantically similar DPs which do inflect under the right conditions. Evidence is provided to establish the status of particles as ‘special clitics’, which align with the left or right edges of clauses or DPs. A small set of roots is identified which alternates between particle and normal nominal behaviour.
Kayardild Morphology and Syntax
This book presents new data and a formal analysis of the inflectional system and syntax of Kayardild, a typologically striking language of Northern Australia. It sets forth arguments for recognizing an intricate syntactic structure that underlies the exuberant distribution of inflectional features throughout the clause, and for an intermediate, 'morphemic' level of representation that mediates morphosyntactic features' realization as morphologica…
Morphomes as a level of representation capture unity of exponence across the inflection-derivation divide
Inferential-realisational analyses formalise a language's inflectional morphology in terms of a mapping on the one side from a lexical index and set of morphosyntactic properties to on the other side a phonological form. Round (2009) has argued that the Australian language Kayardild requires the postulation of an intermediate level of representation, identified with Aronoff's (1994) notion of a "morphome". This morphomic level serves to express p…
Word Final Phonology in Lardil
The word final phonology of Lardil was brought to the attention of linguists by Ken Hale in the 1960s and since then certain properties of the data have led it to occupy a privileged position, in a canon of data sets against which new theoretical proposals are frequently tested. Several seminal arguments for new and high-profile phonological theories are now based at least in part upon analyses of Hale's data set. After reviewing what is of such …
Reappraising the Effects of Language Contact in the Torres Strait
The contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e.g. by Dixon 2002, Wurm 1972, and others) to have been sufficiently intense as to obscure the genetic relationship of the Western Torres Strait language. Some have argued that it is an Australian (Pama-Nyungan) language, though with considerable influence from the Papuan language Meryam Mir (the Eastern Torres Strait language). Others have claimed tha…
Function word erosion which is not a frequency effect
Apical Obstruents in Pre-Proto-Tangkic and the Origins of the Non-Zero Absolutive
The subidentificational meanings of English some and Swedish någon
English some and Swedish någon have a number of ‘subidentificational’ meanings, as in English some general (or other) has been shot ; it was some shooting (or something) . This paper reviews those meanings and attempts to determine how many context-invariant meanings are needed in order to account for their full range of meanings in context. By explicitly setting out processes of inference generation within a Gricean framework, it is found that f…
On looking into words (and beyond)
On Looking into Words is a wide-ranging volume spanning current research into word structure and morphology, with a focus on historical linguistics and linguistic theory. The papers are offered as a tribute to Stephen R. Anderson, the Dorothy R. Diebold Professor of Linguistics at Yale, who is retiring at the end of the 2016-2017 academic year. The contributors are friends, colleagues, and former students of Professor Anderson, all important cont…
Comparability and measurement in typological science
Linguistics, and typology in particular, can have a bright future. We justify this optimism by discussing comparability from two angles. First, we take the opportunity presented by this special issue of Linguistic Typology to pause for a moment and make explicit some of the logical underpinnings of typological sciences, linguistics included, which we believe are worth reminding ourselves of. Second, we give a brief illustration of comparison, and…
Kayardild Morphology and Syntax
This book presents new data and a formal analysis of the inflectional system and syntax of Kayardild, a typologically striking language of Northern Australia. It sets forth arguments for recognizing an intricate syntactic structure that underlies the exuberant distribution of inflectional features throughout the clause, and for an intermediate, 'morphemic' level of representation that mediates morphosyntactic features' realization as morphologica…
Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
Almost universally, diachronic sound patterns of languages reveal evidence of both regular and irregular sound changes, yet an exception may be the languages of Australia. Here we discuss a long-observed and striking characteristic of diachronic sound patterns in Australian languages, namely the scarcity of evidence they present for regular sound change. Since the regularity assumption is fundamental to the comparative method, Australian language…
Phonaesthemes in morphological theory
The theory of feature systems
Features are central to all major theories of syntax and morphology. Yet it can be a non-trivial task to determine the inventory of features and their values for a given language, and in particular to determine whether to postulate one feature or two in the same semantico-syntactic domain. We illustrate this from tense-aspect-mood (TAM) in Kayardild, and adduce principles for deciding in general between one-feature and two-feature analyses, there…
Reappraising the Effects of Language Contact in the Torres Strait
The contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e.g. by Dixon 2002, Wurm 1972, and others) to have been sufficiently intense as to obscure the genetic relationship of the Western Torres Strait language. Some have argued that it is an Australian (Pama-Nyungan) language, though with considerable influence from the Papuan language Meryam Mir (the Eastern Torres Strait language). Others have claimed tha…
Function word erosion which is not a frequency effect
The subidentificational meanings of English some and Swedish någon
English some and Swedish någon have a number of ‘subidentificational’ meanings, as in English some general (or other) has been shot ; it was some shooting (or something) . This paper reviews those meanings and attempts to determine how many context-invariant meanings are needed in order to account for their full range of meanings in context. By explicitly setting out processes of inference generation within a Gricean framework, it is found that f…
Apical Obstruents in Pre-Proto-Tangkic and the Origins of the Non-Zero Absolutive
Function word erosion which is not a frequency effect
Morphomes as a level of representation capture unity of exponence across the inflection-derivation divide
Inferential-realisational analyses formalise a language's inflectional morphology in terms of a mapping on the one side from a lexical index and set of morphosyntactic properties to on the other side a phonological form. Round (2009) has argued that the Australian language Kayardild requires the postulation of an intermediate level of representation, identified with Aronoff's (1994) notion of a "morphome". This morphomic level serves to express p…
Word Final Phonology in Lardil
The word final phonology of Lardil was brought to the attention of linguists by Ken Hale in the 1960s and since then certain properties of the data have led it to occupy a privileged position, in a canon of data sets against which new theoretical proposals are frequently tested. Several seminal arguments for new and high-profile phonological theories are now based at least in part upon analyses of Hale's data set. After reviewing what is of such …
Reappraising the Effects of Language Contact in the Torres Strait
The contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e.g. by Dixon 2002, Wurm 1972, and others) to have been sufficiently intense as to obscure the genetic relationship of the Western Torres Strait language. Some have argued that it is an Australian (Pama-Nyungan) language, though with considerable influence from the Papuan language Meryam Mir (the Eastern Torres Strait language). Others have claimed tha…
Particles
Chapter 10 examines particles, the Kayardild word class which escapes all inflection. True particles are distinguished from semantically similar DPs which do inflect under the right conditions. Evidence is provided to establish the status of particles as ‘special clitics’, which align with the left or right edges of clauses or DPs. A small set of roots is identified which alternates between particle and normal nominal behaviour.
Kayardild Morphology and Syntax
This book presents new data and a formal analysis of the inflectional system and syntax of Kayardild, a typologically striking language of Northern Australia. It sets forth arguments for recognizing an intricate syntactic structure that underlies the exuberant distribution of inflectional features throughout the clause, and for an intermediate, 'morphemic' level of representation that mediates morphosyntactic features' realization as morphologica…
Universals of Split Argument Coding and Morphological Neutralization
Kala Lagaw Ya is the language of the western and central islands of the Torres Strait. It exhibits an extremely complex pattern of ‘split argument coding’ (‘split ergativity’), which has previously been considered typologically exceptional and problematic for widely discussed universals of argument coding dating back to work by Silverstein, Comrie and Dixon in the 1970s, and framed in terms of an ‘animacy’ or ‘nominal’ hierarchy. Furthermore, the…
Phonaesthemes in morphological theory
The theory of feature systems
Features are central to all major theories of syntax and morphology. Yet it can be a non-trivial task to determine the inventory of features and their values for a given language, and in particular to determine whether to postulate one feature or two in the same semantico-syntactic domain. We illustrate this from tense-aspect-mood (TAM) in Kayardild, and adduce principles for deciding in general between one-feature and two-feature analyses, there…
Comparability and measurement in typological science
Linguistics, and typology in particular, can have a bright future. We justify this optimism by discussing comparability from two angles. First, we take the opportunity presented by this special issue of Linguistic Typology to pause for a moment and make explicit some of the logical underpinnings of typological sciences, linguistics included, which we believe are worth reminding ourselves of. Second, we give a brief illustration of comparison, and…
Phylogenetic signal in phonotactics
Phylogenetic methods have broad potential in linguistics beyond tree inference. Here, we show how a phylogenetic approach opens the possibility of gaining historical insights from entirely new kinds of linguistic data – in this instance, statistical phonotactics. We extract phonotactic data from 112 Pama-Nyungan vocabularies and apply tests for phylogenetic signal, quantifying the degree to which the data reflect phylogenetic history. We test thr…
Challenges of sampling and how phylogenetic comparative methods help
Phylogenetic comparative methods are new in our field and are shrouded, for most linguists, in at least a little mystery. Yet the path that led to their discovery in comparative biology is so similar to the methodological history of balanced sampling, that it is only an accident of history that they were not discovered by a linguistic typologist. Here we clarify the essential logic behind phylogenetic comparative methods and their fundamental rel…
Areal pressure in grammatical evolution
This article investigates the evolutionary and spatial dynamics of typological characters in 117 Indo-European languages. We partition types of change (i.e., gain or loss) for each variant according to whether they bring about a simplification in morphosyntactic patterns that must be learned, whether they are neutral (i.e., neither simplifying nor introducing complexity) or whether they introduce a more complex pattern. We find that changes which…
Where have all the sound changes gone? Examining the scarcity of evidence for regular sound change in Australian languages
Almost universally, diachronic sound patterns of languages reveal evidence of both regular and irregular sound changes, yet an exception may be the languages of Australia. Here we discuss a long-observed and striking characteristic of diachronic sound patterns in Australian languages, namely the scarcity of evidence they present for regular sound change. Since the regularity assumption is fundamental to the comparative method, Australian language…
Phonotactics
The phonologies of Australia can now be investigated with new tools for large-scale phonological typology. Here we draw on an empirical dataset covering three hundred thousand lexical entries from over two hundred and fifty language varieties, which enables us to understand continent-level phonological variation in significantly more detail than previously. Variation is observed in terms of major genealogical groupings of languages, comparing the…
Canonical phonology and criterial conflicts
Typologists strive to compare like with like, but four dilemmas make this challenging in phonology: (1) the non-uniqueness of phonological analysis; and the existence of (2) multiple levels of analysis; (3) multiple theories of phonology; and (4) analytical interdependencies between phonological phenomena. Here I argue that the four dilemmas can be coherently related, and then addressed together. I introduce the concept of criterial conflicts, de…
Frequent violation of the sonority sequencing principle in hundreds of languages
The Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) is a fundamental governing principle of syllable structure; however, its details remain contested. This study aims to clarify the empirical status of the SSP in a cross-linguistic study of 496 languages. We adopt a phonetically-grounded definition of sonority – acoustic intensity – and examine how many languages contain SSP-violating clusters word-initially and word-finally. We consider the treatment of com…
Analogy in Inflection
Analogy has returned to prominence in the field of inflectional morphology as a basis for new explanations of inflectional productivity. Here we review the rising profile of analogy, identifying key theoretical and methodological developments, areas of success, and priorities for future work. In morphological theory, work within so-called abstractive approaches places analogy at the center of productive processes, though significant conceptual an…
On looking into words (and beyond)
On Looking into Words is a wide-ranging volume spanning current research into word structure and morphology, with a focus on historical linguistics and linguistic theory. The papers are offered as a tribute to Stephen R. Anderson, the Dorothy R. Diebold Professor of Linguistics at Yale, who is retiring at the end of the 2016-2017 academic year. The contributors are friends, colleagues, and former students of Professor Anderson, all important cont…
Ancient languages and algorithms
Historical linguistics has experienced an upsurge in methodological innovation. However, owing to the constraints of contemporary publication, these innovations often appear in print in a format which is technical, dense and less than fully accessible. Moreover, because these innovations are still young and have often arisen in other fields before being translated to historical linguistics, our own discipline has yet to accumulate a stock of trus…
The natural stability of autonomous morphology
Autonomous morphology, such as inflection class systems and paradigmatic distribution patterns, is widespread and diachronically resilient in natural language. Why this should be so has remained unclear given that autonomous morphology imposes learning costs, offers no clear benefit relative to its absence and could easily be removed by the analogical forces which are constantly reshaping it. Here we propose an explanation for the resilience of a…
Linguistics (20 obras) · Philosophy (18 obras) · Computer Science (17 obras) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (14 obras) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (10 obras) · Philosophy (9 obras) · Phonology (9 obras) · History (8 obras) · Mathematics (8 obras) · Artificial Intelligence (7 obras)