Abstract
Australia has been described as an ancient and complex linguistic area, with few recoverable genetic groups (see, for example, Dixon, 1997, 2001, 2002). Evidence cited in support of this areal model includes: the lack of bunching isoglosses for major features such as prefixation, bound pronouns, noun classes and phonological changes; the difficulty of classifying the various Pama-Nyungan daughter languages into discrete subgroups and subfamilies; the apparent time-depth of settlement of the continent; and long-standing, widespread multilingualism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra and R. M. W. Dixon. (eds.) (2001) Areal Diffusion and Genetic Inheritance: Problems in Comparative Linguistics (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Aklif, G. (1999) Ardiyooloon Bardi ngaanka: One Arm Point Bardi dictionary. Halls Creek, Western Australia, Kimberley Language Resource Centre.
Alpher, B. and D. Nash (1999) ‘Lexical Replacement and Cognate Equilibrium in Australia.’ Australian Journal of Linguistics, vol. 19, pp. 5–56.
Anttila, Raimo (1989/1972) Historical and Comparative Linguistics, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 6 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins).
Bellwood, P. (2001) ‘Archaeology and the Historical Determinants of Punctuation in Language Family Origins’, in Dixon and Aikhenvald (eds), Areal Diffusion, pp. 27–43.
Bowern, C. (1998) ‘The Case of Proto Karnic: Morphological Change and Reconstruction in the Nominal and Pronominal System of Proto Karnic (Lake Eyre Basin)’, BA Hons sub-thesis, Australian National University.
Bowern, C. (2001) ‘Karnic Classification Revisited’, in J. Simpson, D. Nash, M. Laughren, P. Austin and B. Alpher (eds), Forty Years On: Ken Hale and Australian Languages (Canberra: Australian National University), pp. 245–61.
Bowern, C. (2003a) ‘Another Look at Australia as a Linguistic Area’, Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistic Society Annual Meeting, 14–17 February 2003 (Berkeley, Calif.: Berkeley Linguistic Society), pp. 55–66.
Bowern, C. (2003b) Supplement to Ardiyooloon Bardi Ngaanka: One Arm Point Bardi Dictionary (One Arm Point, Western Australia).
Bowern, C. and Harold Koch (eds.) (2004) Australian Languages: Classification and the Comparative Method, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 249 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins).
Campbell, Lyle (1987) ‘Syntactic Change in Pipil.’ IJAL, vol. 53, pp. 253–80.
Campbell, Lyle (1996) ‘On Sound Change and Challenges to Regularity’, in M. Durie and M. Ross (eds), The Comparative Method Reviewed: Regularity and Irregularity in Language Change (Oxford, Oxford University Press), pp. 72–89.
Campbell, Lyle (2002) ‘What Drives Linguistic Diversity and Language Spread?’, in Colin Renfrew and Peter Bellwood (eds), Language-Farming Dispersals (Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research), p. 22.
Campbell, Lyle (2003) ‘Beyond the Comparative Method?’, in Barry Blake and Kate Burridge (eds.), Selected Papers from the Fifteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics (Amsterdam: John Benjamins).
Chambers, J K. (1998) Dialectology (New York: Cambridge University Press), 2nd edn.
Crowley, T. (1999) ‘Review of R. M. W. Dixon 1997, The rise and fall of languages’, Australian Journal of Linguistics, vol. 19, pp. 108–15.
Dench, Alan (2001) ‘Descent and Diffusion: The Complexity of the Pilbara Situation’, in Dixon and Aikhenvald (eds), Areal Diffusion, pp. 105–33.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1970) ‘Languages of the Cairns Rain Forest Region’, in S. A. Wurm and D. C. Laycock (eds), Pacific Linguistics Studies in Honour of Arthur Capell (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics), pp. 651–87.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1972) The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland, Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Dixon, R. M. W. (1996) ‘Origin Legends and Linguistic Relationships’, Oceania, vol. 67, pp. 127–39.
Dixon, R. M. W. (1997) The Rise and Fall of Languages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Dixon, R. M. W. (2001) ‘The Australian Linguistic Area’, in Dixon and Aikhenvald (eds), Areal Diffusion, pp. 64–104.
Dixon, R. M. W. (2002) Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
Eldredge, Niles and Stephen Jay Gould (1972) ‘Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism’, in T. J. M. Schopf (ed.), Models in Paleobiology (San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper), pp. 82–115.
Evans, N. (2004a) ‘Introduction: Comparative Non-Pama-Nyungan and Australian Historical Linguistics’, in N. Evans (ed.), The Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia: Comparative Studies of the Continent’s Most Linguistically Complex Region (Canberra, The Australian National University), pp. 2–24.
Evans, N. (ed.) (2004b) The Non-Pama-Nyungan Languages of Northern Australia: Comparative Studies of the Continent’s Most Linguistically Complex Region (Canberra: The Australian National University).
Geraghty, Paul (1983) The History of Fijian Languages (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press).
Harris, D. R. (1996) The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia (London: UCL Press).
Hercus, Luise (1972) ‘The Pre-stopped Nasal and Lateral Consonants of ArabanaWangganguru’, Anthropological Linguistics, vol. 14, no. 8, pp. 293–305.
Hercus, Luise (1979) ‘In the Margins of an Arabana-Wangganguru Dictionary: The Loss of Initial Consonants’, in Stephen A. Wurm (ed.), Australian Linguistic Studies, Pacific Linguistics, C-54 (Canberra: The Australian National University), pp. 621–5.
Hercus, Luise (1980) ‘“How We Danced the Mudlungga”: Memories of 1901 and 1902’, Aboriginal History, vol. 4, nos 1–2, pp. 5–31.
Hercus, Luise (1986) The Baagandji Language, Pacific Linguistics, B-67 (Canberra: The Australian National University).
Hock, Hans Henrich (1991) Principles of Historical Linguistics, 2nd edn (Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter).
Hoenigswald, Henry M. (1960) Language Change and Linguistic Reconstruction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Hosokawa, K. (n. d.) ‘Yawuru Dictionary’, AIATSIS (Canberra).
Joseph, Brian (2001) ‘Review of Rise and Fall of Languages’, Journal of Linguistics, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 180–6.
Koch, Harold (1997) ‘Comparative Linguistics and Australian Prehistory’, in McConvell and Evans (eds), Archaeology and Linguistics, pp. 27–43.
Koch, Harold (2004) ‘A Methodological History of Australian Linguistic Classification and Subgrou**’, in C. Bowern and H. Koch (eds), Australian Languages: Classification and the Comparative Method (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins).
Kuteva, Tania (1999) ‘Language and Societies: The “Punctuated Equilibrium” Model of Language Development’, Language and Communication, vol. 19, pp. 213–28.
Labov, William (1981) ‘Resolving the Neogrammarian Controversy’. Language, vol. 57, pp. 267–305.
Lass, R. (1997) Historical Linguistics and Language Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
McBryde, Isobel (1987) ‘Goods from Another Country: Exchange Networks in the Lake Eyre Basin’, in D. J. Mulvaney and P. J. White (eds), Australians to 1788, vol. III of Australians: A Historical Library (Sydney: Fairfax, Syme and Weldon Associates), pp. 252–73.
McConvell, Patrick (1996) ‘Backtracking to Babel: The Chronology of Pama-Nyungan Expansion in Australia’, Archaeology in Oceania, vol. 31, pp. 125–44.
McConvell, Patrick and Nicholas Evans (1997) Archaeology and Linguistics: Aboriginal Australia in Global Perspective (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press).
McKelson, K. (1989) ‘Karajarri Dictionary’, AIATSIS (Canberra).
Mulvaney, John and J. Kamminga (1999) The Prehistory of Australia (London: Smithsonian Institution Press).
Nettle, D. (1998) Linguistic Diversity (New York: Oxford University Press).
Nettle, D. (1999) ‘Linguistic Diversity of the Americas Can Be Reconciled With a Recent Colonization’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 96: pp. 3325–29.
O’Grady, G. N. and T. Klokeid (1969) ‘Australian Linguistic Classification: A Plea for Coordination of Effort’, Oceania, vol. 39, pp. 298–311.
O’Grady, G. N., Stephen Wurm and Kenneth Hale (1966) Aboriginal Languages of Australia (Victoria, BC: University of Victoria).
O’Connor, Sue (1999) 30,000 years of Aboriginal occupation. Terra Australis, vol. 14.
Pagel, M. D. (2000) ‘The History, Rate and Pattern of World Linguistic Evolution’, in C. Knight, M. Studdert-Kennedy and J. R. Hurford (eds), The Evolutionary Emergence of Language: Social Function and the Origins of Linguistic Form (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 391–416.
Roberts, Richard, Rhys Jones and Michael Smith (1993) ‘Optical Dating At Deaf Adder Gorge, Northern Territory, Indicates Human Occupation Between 53,000 and 60,000 Years Ago’, Australian archaeology, vol. 37, pp. 58–9.
Ross, Malcolm (1996) ‘Contact-induced Change and the Comparative Method: Cases from Papua New Guinea’, In Mark Durie and Malcolm Ross (eds), The Comparative Method Reviewed: Irregularity and Regularity in Linguistic Change (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 180–217.
Ross, Malcolm (1988) Proto-Oceanic and the Austronesian Languages of Western Melanesia Pacific Linguistics, C-98 (Canberra: The Australian National University).
Ross, Malcolm (1997) ‘Social Networks and Kinds of Speech-community Event’, in Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs (eds), Archaeology and Language, vol. 1 (London: Routledge), pp. 209–61.
Schulze, Wolfgang (2004) ‘Review of Dixon (2004)’. http://cf.linguistlist.org/cfdocs/new-website/LL-WorkingDirs/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?SubID=11183
Sihler, A. (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (Oxford: Oxford Univer-sity Press).
Sihler, A. (2000) Language History: An Introduction (Amsterdam: John Benjamins).
Smith, Moya, E. Williams and R. J. Wasson (1991) ‘The Archaeology of the JSN Site: Some Implications for the Dynamics of Human Occupation in the Strzlecki Desert During the Late Pleistocene’, Records of the South Australian Museum, vol. 25, no. II, pp. 175–92.
Terrill, Angela. ‘Punctuated Equilibrium in the Solomon Islands’, Terrill: Paper presented at the International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Copenhagen, 10–16 August 2003.
Thomason, Sarah Grey and Terrence Kaufman (1988) Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press).
Veth, Peter (1993) Islands in the Interior. International Monographs in Prehistory. Archaeological Series, 3 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan).
Watkins, C. (2001) ‘An Indo-European Linguistic Area and its Characteristics: Ancient Anatolia. Areal Diffusion as a Challenge to the Comparative Method?’, in Dixon and Aikhenvald (eds), Areal Diffusion, pp. 44–63.
Wurm, Stephen A. (1972) Languages of Australia and Tasmania. (The Hague: Mouton de Gruyter).
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2006 Claire Bowern
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bowern, C. (2006). Another Look at Australia as a Linguistic Area. In: Matras, Y., McMahon, A., Vincent, N. (eds) Linguistic Areas. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287617_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287617_10
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-54544-5
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-28761-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Language & Linguistics CollectionEducation (R0)