title: Retained Primitive Reflexes: The influences of Rhythmic Movement Training (RMT) in the classroom – preliminary results from one student

authors: Grigg, Tessa M.

subjects: Children

abstract: This research investigates the influences of Rhythmic Movement Training (RMT) on student achievement and behavioural outcomes, with teacher and parent perspectives included in the analysis. The individualised movement programme comprises passive, active and isometric exercises and is designed to integrate retained primitive reflexes within the brain. There is anecdotal evidence that RMT can make significant differences for children both academically and behaviourally. The research presented in this paper describes the mixed methods study that was completed and details the preliminary results of one child from the group of participants. Orla was 6.5 years old at the beginning of the study and had been identified as having learning challenges. Her progress after RMT was introduced was commented on by her teacher and the specialist teachers who worked with her. The quasi-experimental nature of classroom-based research means that it is not clear exactly how the changes in her progress were made, as there were other interventions taking place at the same time. However, it has been noted that there was an increase in the rate of change once she started the exercises.

text: Retained Primitive Reflexes: The influences of Rhythmic Movement Training (RMT) in the classroom – preliminary results from one student This research investigates the influences of Rhythmic Movement Training (RMT) on student achievement and behavioural outcomes, with teacher and parent perspectives included in the analysis. The individualised movement programme comprises passive, active and isometric exercises and is designed to integrate retained primitive reflexes within the brain. There is anecdotal evidence that RMT can make significant differences for children both academically and behaviourally. The research presented in this paper describes the mixed methods study that was completed and details the preliminary results of one child from the group of participants. Orla was 6.5 years old at the beginning of the study and had been identified as having learning challenges. Her progress after RMT was introduced was commented on by her teacher and the specialist teachers who worked with her. The quasi-experimental nature of classroom-based research means that it is not clear exactly how the changes in her progress were made, as there were other interventions taking place at the same time. However, it has been noted that there was an increase in the rate of change once she started the exercises.

year: 2018

title: A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu)

authors: Rangelov, Tihomir Rumenov

subjects: Ahamb

abstract: A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu) offers a description of the endangered and previously undocumented Ahamb language spoken by around 950 people. This grammatical description is one of the main outcomes of the Ahamb Language Documentation Project, which involved over 8 months of data collection with Ahamb speakers in Vanuatu and resulted in an archived collection of over 50 hours of recorded speech and other materials. This description is based on a corpus of around 22 hours of annotated Ahamb speech and other texts. 
This thesis starts with an introduction to the Ahamb language, its speakers and the contexts in which it is spoken. The grammatical description that follows consists of a description of Ahamb’s phonology, morphology and syntax. Ahamb’s phonology is characterised by distinctive prenasalisation in its plosives and trills. There are four contrastive trills, including the typologically rare plain bilabial trill. The vowel inventory is also relatively large compared to other related languages, with eight contrastive vowels. 
The description of nominals and noun phrases in Ahamb spans four chapters. Nouns in Ahamb are classified as common, personal and local. They can also be classified as alienable and inalienable, which corresponds to a structural distinction in possessive constructions involving classifiers (general and alimentary) or direct suffixation respectively. Noun phrases consist of a nominal head and various modifiers that follow it in a relatively flexible order.
Verbs in Ahamb can be transitive and intransitive. Intransitive verbs are further classified as active or stative. Detransitivisation is possible with the use of prefixation or reduplication. Verbs can take a number of prefixed tense/aspect/mood/polarity modifiers and commonly feature a subject index. Subject indexes come in three paradigms with forms for all person, number and clusivity distinctions. Neutral subject indexes are used in a variety of situations and combine most freely with other preverbal modifiers. Sequential event subject indexes are used to mark the second and subsequent verb in complex clauses that encode sequential events with the same subject. Irrealis subject indexes are used in interrogatives and negative modality constructions, among others. The objects of transitive verbs can be encoded by an object pro-index, which can take four different forms. 
Ahamb has SVO word order. Negation can be expressed in a number of ways, including a separate prohibitive coding and a negative modality particle. Different verb-like forms can function as prepositions and deictic markers. Complementation can be expressed with or without a complementiser, corresponding to a distinction in the semantic properties of the complement taking verb. Verb serialisation has been attested on the nuclear and core level. A special type of nuclear serialisation-like construction involves coverbs – non-prototypical verb forms that are only attested in such constructions. On the core level, switch-function and ambient serialisation is attested. Subordination is possible with a large variety of conjunctions. Other complex clause types include sequential event constructions and both syndetic and asydentic coordinating constructions.

text: A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu) A grammar of the Ahamb language (Vanuatu) offers a description of the endangered and previously undocumented Ahamb language spoken by around 950 people. This grammatical description is one of the main outcomes of the Ahamb Language Documentation Project, which involved over 8 months of data collection with Ahamb speakers in Vanuatu and resulted in an archived collection of over 50 hours of recorded speech and other materials. This description is based on a corpus of around 22 hours of annotated Ahamb speech and other texts. 
This thesis starts with an introduction to the Ahamb language, its speakers and the contexts in which it is spoken. The grammatical description that follows consists of a description of Ahamb’s phonology, morphology and syntax. Ahamb’s phonology is characterised by distinctive prenasalisation in its plosives and trills. There are four contrastive trills, including the typologically rare plain bilabial trill. The vowel inventory is also relatively large compared to other related languages, with eight contrastive vowels. 
The description of nominals and noun phrases in Ahamb spans four chapters. Nouns in Ahamb are classified as common, personal and local. They can also be classified as alienable and inalienable, which corresponds to a structural distinction in possessive constructions involving classifiers (general and alimentary) or direct suffixation respectively. Noun phrases consist of a nominal head and various modifiers that follow it in a relatively flexible order.
Verbs in Ahamb can be transitive and intransitive. Intransitive verbs are further classified as active or stative. Detransitivisation is possible with the use of prefixation or reduplication. Verbs can take a number of prefixed tense/aspect/mood/polarity modifiers and commonly feature a subject index. Subject indexes come in three paradigms with forms for all person, number and clusivity distinctions. Neutral subject indexes are used in a variety of situations and combine most freely with other preverbal modifiers. Sequential event subject indexes are used to mark the second and subsequent verb in complex clauses that encode sequential events with the same subject. Irrealis subject indexes are used in interrogatives and negative modality constructions, among others. The objects of transitive verbs can be encoded by an object pro-index, which can take four different forms. 
Ahamb has SVO word order. Negation can be expressed in a number of ways, including a separate prohibitive coding and a negative modality particle. Different verb-like forms can function as prepositions and deictic markers. Complementation can be expressed with or without a complementiser, corresponding to a distinction in the semantic properties of the complement taking verb. Verb serialisation has been attested on the nuclear and core level. A special type of nuclear serialisation-like construction involves coverbs – non-prototypical verb forms that are only attested in such constructions. On the core level, switch-function and ambient serialisation is attested. Subordination is possible with a large variety of conjunctions. Other complex clause types include sequential event constructions and both syndetic and asydentic coordinating constructions.

year: 2020

title: Eta Mokena, daughter of Mokena Hou, and her husband, Hare Renata

authors: Hart, Philip

abstract: The family backgrounds of both Eta Mokena and Hare Renata can be traced, but little is known about her life compared with that of her husband. From an early age he lived in various places in Hauraki, cultivating, running pigs, catching birds, fish, and eels, and selling some of these to Pakeha. Both owned interests in several blocks of land, and Eta, being childless, gifted some interests to her nephew and nieces. Hare Renata had to fight off other claimants for several blocks of land, not always successfully, and not always by giving truthful evidence. Despite selling some of their interests in land, they were never financially secure.
Renata held interests in three goldfields whereas Eta held only one, in a claim named after her family. They settled in several places, and only rarely lived at Te Aroha until their last years.

text: Eta Mokena, daughter of Mokena Hou, and her husband, Hare Renata The family backgrounds of both Eta Mokena and Hare Renata can be traced, but little is known about her life compared with that of her husband. From an early age he lived in various places in Hauraki, cultivating, running pigs, catching birds, fish, and eels, and selling some of these to Pakeha. Both owned interests in several blocks of land, and Eta, being childless, gifted some interests to her nephew and nieces. Hare Renata had to fight off other claimants for several blocks of land, not always successfully, and not always by giving truthful evidence. Despite selling some of their interests in land, they were never financially secure.
Renata held interests in three goldfields whereas Eta held only one, in a claim named after her family. They settled in several places, and only rarely lived at Te Aroha until their last years.

year: 2016