Bininj Gun-Wok: A pan-dialectal
grammar of Mayali, Kunwinjku and Kune (volumes 1 and 2)
Nicolas Evans
The term Bininj Gun-wok was
recently coined to cover a large group of related dialects
spoken in Western Arnhem Land, Australia, including Kunwinjku,
Mayali, Gun-djeihmi, Kune, and others; many of these dialects
have not been described before. Bininj Gun-wok, in turn, belongs
to the so-called Gunwinjguan family, the largest family of
non-Pama-Nyungan languages. It is one of the few Australian
languages still being passed on to children, and in fact the
number of speakers is increasing.
This detailed pan-dialectal grammar takes care to set the
language in its cultural context throughout, with rich ethnographic
discussion of the many special kinship-based speech registers
and a sizeable text collection with examples of all major
dialects. Bininj Gun-wok is a heavily polysynthetic language,
with three productive types of noun incorporation, incorporation
of one verb into another, two applicatives, reflexive/reciprocal
formation, prefixes representing subject and object/indirect
object, and a large number of further adverbial-type prefixes.
Within the nominal system, it has four genders in some dialects,
reducing to simpler systems in others. A major focus of the
grammar is the many problems of how meanings are constructed
in a polysynthetic language, and how the many elements of
the verbal morphology interact with one another in the composition
of grammatical structure.
This volume will be of interest to a wide range of readers:
morphologists and syntacticians, Australianists, linguistic
anthropologists, dialectologists, typologists, and educationists
and others working in Western Arnhem Land.
Published: 2003
PL 541, ISBN (Paperback): 0 85883 530 4 7
Prices (for two-volume set): Australia A$159.50
(inc. GST), Overseas A$145.00
previous next
Place an order
|
