A description of the Emmi language of the Northern Territory of Australia
By: Lysbeth J. Ford
Series: Outstanding grammars from Australia / RMW Dixon (series editor) -- 08; Outstanding grammars from Australia -- 08
Publisher: LINCOM EUROPA
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Muenchen
Language: eng
Number of pages: 446
ISBN-13: 9783862881543
Subjects: Ami language (Australia); Grammar; Australian languages; Language - Linguistics - Grammar and syntax; Language - Linguistics - Language elicitation - Translated; Literature and stories; Language - Vocabulary - Word lists; Emmi / Ami Ami language (N15) (NT SD52-07); Menthe / Manda language (N6) (NT SD52-07)
Description: Emmi, named after the word for 'what' in the language, is a highly endangered polysynthetic Australian language with only a handful of fluent speakers. A member of the Daly River sprachbund of the Northern Territory, Emmi is a head-marking language with vestigial noun class marking, but a highly developed system of verb classifiers and ordered nominal and propositional enclitics. Emmi noun incorporation is lexical and syntactic, and, as in other languages of the region, lexically incorporated body-parts function as metaphors and classifiers for entitties of similar shape to these body-parts. The syntax of Emmi simple and complex clauses involves serial constructions in which major intransitive verbs have been poly-grammaticised to provide aspectual information.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references: pages 440-446.
Table of contents: title: Map 1 : Emmiyangal and Menhdheyangal traditional territory; title: Map 2: Emmiyangal and Menhdheyangal traditional territory from Tindale's 1974 map; title: Map 3: The Daly Tribes Stanner 1933a; title: Ch. 1: Emmi and the Emmiyangal: geographical and historical context : Name of language; Linguistic type and typological singularities; Emmiyangal traditional territory; Post-contact history; Speakers; Methodology of this work; Previous work on the language; Relationship with neighbouring languages; title: Phonology : introduction; Segmental phoneme inventory; Phonotactics; Obstruent hierarchies; Rules; title: Nominal morphology : the grammatical word; Word classes; Nouns; Pronouns; Adjectives; Nominal compounding; Deictics; Numeral qualifiers; Interrogatives; title: Verb morphology: verb structure; Tense and status; Auxiliary verb paradigms; pronominal verbs prefixed analysed; Bound pronominal suffixes; Number marking on the VP; title: Auxiliary (AUX) and coverb; title: Nominals incorporated into the verb complex; title: Propositional enclitics; title: Eight syntactic constructions; title: Appendices : Appendix A (i) - Basedow word-list; A (ii) Basedow's other vocabulary; title: Appendix B: Capell word list; title: Appendix C: Auxiliary verb paradigms; title: Appendix D: Texts: Text 1: Wulgomen "Old woman"; title: Text 2: Incest story; title: Text 3: How the Rainbow Serpent stole fire; title: Text 4: Kilakuy; title: Text 5: :Sugarbag (honey); title: Text 10: Pebel, the girl who drowned; title: Text 11: How to make baskets from merrepen.