A New Grammar of Dyirbal

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R. M. W. Dixon (Adjunct Professor, Adjunct Professor, Jawun Research Centre, Central Queensland University, Cairns)

A New Grammar of Dyirbal

R. M. W. Dixon (Adjunct Professor, Adjunct Professor, Jawun Research Centre, Central Queensland University, Cairns)

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English

Oxford University Press
21 February 2025

Historical & comparative linguistics; Grammar, syntax; Social & cultural anthropology

R. M. W. Dixon's landmark 1972 grammar of the Dyirbal language of North Queensland is one of the best-known and most widely-cited language descriptions in the history of linguistics. In the fifty years since its publication, Dixon has continued his detailed work on the language, extending and refining the descriptions in light of more recent theoretical advances. The resulting A New Grammar of Dyirbal offers a comprehensive contemporary grammar of the language, reanalysed in myriad ways and drawing on an extensive corpus of texts. Among its many new features are further discussion of the applicative/causative derivation; a fresh focus on the role of the pervasive 'pivot', the syntactic linking of S and O functions; a detailed account of the two antipassives and their semantic contrast and phonological conditioning; and an extended account of relative clauses. The volume is accompanied by a companion website hosting the full set of textual data on which the grammar is based, as well as a thesaurus/dictionary of nouns, adjectives, and verbs across ten dialects of Dyirbal.

By: R. M. W. Dixon (Adjunct Professor Adjunct Professor Jawun Research Centre Central Queensland University Cairns)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 245mm, Width: 171mm, Spine: 26mm
Weight: 840g
ISBN: 9780198944317
ISBN 10: 0198944314
Pages: 496
Publication Date: 21 February 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface Abbreviations and conventions Dialects and data 1: Overview 2: The S/O pivot 3: Nominal morphology 4: Questions 5: The number system 6: Relative clauses 7: Possession 8: Verbal structure and the consequence suffix 9: The potentiality and caution suffixes 10: The apprehensive suffix 11: The applicative/causative derivation 12: Valency-reducing derivations: antipassives, reflexive, and reciprocal 13: Noun markers, demonstratives, and verb markers-base part 14: Noun markers, demonstratives, and verb markers-ancillaries 15: Verbless clauses 16: Particles 17: Clitics Appendix: Ambitransitive verbs and like matters Text 61: How the black goanna changed into a crocodile References Vocabulary Inventory of affixes and clitics Index

R. M. W. Dixon is Adjunct Professor at Central Queensland University, Cairns Campus, and has previously held positions at University College London, Harvard University, the Australian National University, University of California at Santa Cruz, La Trobe University, and James Cook University. His pioneering fieldwork on Indigenous Australian languages began in the 1960s and led, among many other works, to The Dyirbal Language of North Queensland (CUP 1972); he has also written grammars of Yidiñ, Warrgamay, Boumaa Fijian, and Jarawara. His many other books with OUP include the three-volume work Basic Linguistic Theory (2010-12), Making New Words: Morphological Derivation in English (2014), Edible Gender, Mother-in-Law Style, and Other Grammatical Wonders (2015; paperback 2020), Are Some Languages Better than Others? (2016; paperback 2018), and English Prepositions: Their Meanings and Uses (2021)