[Author Login]
[Home]
ROA:210
Title:A note on verbal agreement in Maung
Authors:Mark Donohue
Comment:12 pages, including 4 figures and 4 tables. Uses IPAKiel font
Length:12
Abstract:The non-Pama Nyungan languages of the north of Australia are notable
for the often elaborate pronominal prefixing that is found on verbs.
Most descriptions of this prefixing describe it as following a
nominative-accusative pattern, and note that the ordering of the
affixes is not fixed: sometimes object precedes subject, sometimes
subject precedes object. In this article I demonstrate that the
pronominal prefixing found in Maung is a split-ergative system, and
that through reference to the alignment categories distinguished by
the prefixes we can find a set of principles behind the variation in
prefix order, which are modelled in a set of constraints following the
principles of Optimality Theory.
Type:Paper/tech report
Area/Keywords:
Article:Version 1