Social cognition and language - the design resources of grammatical diversity. This project will (a) improve Australia's capacity to interact and communicate with other cultures (b) promote advanced training and research (including 9 doctoral students) on the languages of our region (c) carry out extensive new research on 20 languages of the Pacific region, most of which represent gravely endangered cultural traditions (d) draw on the design solutions identified in these languages to develop ....Social cognition and language - the design resources of grammatical diversity. This project will (a) improve Australia's capacity to interact and communicate with other cultures (b) promote advanced training and research (including 9 doctoral students) on the languages of our region (c) carry out extensive new research on 20 languages of the Pacific region, most of which represent gravely endangered cultural traditions (d) draw on the design solutions identified in these languages to develop models appropriate to the social cognition element of human-computer and computer-computer interfacesRead moreRead less
Proto Oceanic Language, culture and environment: Foundations of the Austronesian settlement of the Pacific. The project aims to reconstruct the lexicon of Proto Oceanic. Proto Oceanic was ancestral to most Austronesian languages of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. By paying attention to the semantics of terminologies, we expect to learn much about the culture, society and cosmology of Proto Oceanic speakers and their conception of and adaptation to the natural environment. The results will ....Proto Oceanic Language, culture and environment: Foundations of the Austronesian settlement of the Pacific. The project aims to reconstruct the lexicon of Proto Oceanic. Proto Oceanic was ancestral to most Austronesian languages of Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. By paying attention to the semantics of terminologies, we expect to learn much about the culture, society and cosmology of Proto Oceanic speakers and their conception of and adaptation to the natural environment. The results will be presented in Volumes 3-5 of a five-volume series. Volume 1 was published in 1998; volume 2 is almost complete. This project will support fundamental research for volumes 3 (flora and fauna), 4 (people and society) and 5 (indices, etc).
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A Typological Study of the Sound Systems of the New Guinea-Melanesia Area. This project aims to complete the first detailed cross-linguistic study of the sound systems of the New Guinea Melanesia area. More than one quarter of the world's languages are spoken in this region which remains very little known from a linguistics perspective. Results of this study should have important ramifications for our understanding of: (1) the nature of languages in the region, and of language in general (2) ph ....A Typological Study of the Sound Systems of the New Guinea-Melanesia Area. This project aims to complete the first detailed cross-linguistic study of the sound systems of the New Guinea Melanesia area. More than one quarter of the world's languages are spoken in this region which remains very little known from a linguistics perspective. Results of this study should have important ramifications for our understanding of: (1) the nature of languages in the region, and of language in general (2) phonological description and theory (3) phonological description and theory (4) linguistic diffusion and influence in an area that extends from Eastern Timor to Vanuatu and New Caledonia.Read moreRead less
The linguistic use of space in Auslan (Australian Sign Language): semantic roles and grammatical relations in three dimensions. Research into the structure of Auslan provides information for the production of assessment and teaching tools for practitioners to use in adult education settings (for second language learners of Auslan and Auslan interpreters) and in special education for signing deaf children. It will also serve as a basis for further research into the acquisition of grammatical use ....The linguistic use of space in Auslan (Australian Sign Language): semantic roles and grammatical relations in three dimensions. Research into the structure of Auslan provides information for the production of assessment and teaching tools for practitioners to use in adult education settings (for second language learners of Auslan and Auslan interpreters) and in special education for signing deaf children. It will also serve as a basis for further research into the acquisition of grammatical use of space by native signing deaf children. These outcomes will further benefit the deaf community, improving deaf people's access to education, health, government services and the employment sector.Read moreRead less
Reciprocals across languages. Reciprocity lies at the heart of social organization and human evolution. This project will examine how reciprocity is expressed, and what the different subtypes of reciprocal meaning are, by carrying out linguistic fieldwork on fifteen little-known languages of Australia and its region, making available detailed descriptions of reciprocals that until now have only been available for English and a few European languages. The fieldwork on undescribed, and in most cas ....Reciprocals across languages. Reciprocity lies at the heart of social organization and human evolution. This project will examine how reciprocity is expressed, and what the different subtypes of reciprocal meaning are, by carrying out linguistic fieldwork on fifteen little-known languages of Australia and its region, making available detailed descriptions of reciprocals that until now have only been available for English and a few European languages. The fieldwork on undescribed, and in most cases endangered, languages will be supplemented by a ground-breaking survey of how the various notions of reciprocity are expressed in languages around the world.Read moreRead less
Revival' in the Middle East: The Genesis of Israeli ('Modern Hebrew') - lessons for revival of no-longer spoken Australian languages. This project will enhance mutual understanding within multicultural Australia: (1) helping community leaders seeking to apply the lessons of Israeli to the revival of no-longer spoken Australian languages; (2) assisting local Jews to explore their roots and substantially improving Israeli and Hebrew teaching methodologies at universities and Jewish schools in Aust ....Revival' in the Middle East: The Genesis of Israeli ('Modern Hebrew') - lessons for revival of no-longer spoken Australian languages. This project will enhance mutual understanding within multicultural Australia: (1) helping community leaders seeking to apply the lessons of Israeli to the revival of no-longer spoken Australian languages; (2) assisting local Jews to explore their roots and substantially improving Israeli and Hebrew teaching methodologies at universities and Jewish schools in Australia. Globally, the project will enhance Australia's understanding of social, political and cultural conditions in the Middle East, by facilitating a clearer and more complex understanding of the languages and politics in the region. It will therefore make a valuable contribution to the war against terrorism, now the major threat to national security.Read moreRead less
Cross-linguistic study of endangered Maluku languages: Eastern Indonesia and the Dutch diaspora. This project represents the first large scale investigation of Eastern Indonesian languages, and assembles an international team to examine language evolution through the interface between linguistic typology, language contact and language shift. This ground-breaking work includes a cross-linguistic analysis of structural features in ten Central Moluccan languages. It will test current theories of co ....Cross-linguistic study of endangered Maluku languages: Eastern Indonesia and the Dutch diaspora. This project represents the first large scale investigation of Eastern Indonesian languages, and assembles an international team to examine language evolution through the interface between linguistic typology, language contact and language shift. This ground-breaking work includes a cross-linguistic analysis of structural features in ten Central Moluccan languages. It will test current theories of contact and shift through an innovative comparative analysis of data from speakers in the homeland and the Dutch diaspora. Outcomes will include grammars of six undescribed languages and crucial new insights about language cognition and simplification. Improved knowledge of this closely-neighbouring region will strengthen Australia's Asia-Pacific relations.Read moreRead less
The Grammar of Biblical Hebrew: Functional and Corpus Analyses. The project promotes original, innovative research in Australia into Biblical Hebrew linguistics. Advancement in the knowledge of linguistics increases our understanding of language and its central role in cognition, social interaction, and culture. Biblical Hebrew is the language of the Hebrew Bible, a text sacred to Judaism and Christianity, and of interest to the wider Australian public. The Hebrew Bible is inextricably bound to ....The Grammar of Biblical Hebrew: Functional and Corpus Analyses. The project promotes original, innovative research in Australia into Biblical Hebrew linguistics. Advancement in the knowledge of linguistics increases our understanding of language and its central role in cognition, social interaction, and culture. Biblical Hebrew is the language of the Hebrew Bible, a text sacred to Judaism and Christianity, and of interest to the wider Australian public. The Hebrew Bible is inextricably bound to these two religious traditions that continue to influence substantially Australian society and societies across the world. This project furthers Australia's capacity to contribute to the vital task of interpreting the Hebrew Bible in contemporary, responsible ways and translating it into the world's languages.Read moreRead less
Papuan Descriptive Linguistics of the West Sepik Region. The New Guinea area has an exceptional, but very poorly understood linguistic diversity, over 1000 languages belonging to many unrelated families. This project will fill in gaps through on site fieldwork in Sandaun (West Sepik) Province, linguistically the most genetically diverse and least known province in all of Papua New Guinea. The grammatical descriptions resulting will enrich our understanding of linguistic variation, not only in ....Papuan Descriptive Linguistics of the West Sepik Region. The New Guinea area has an exceptional, but very poorly understood linguistic diversity, over 1000 languages belonging to many unrelated families. This project will fill in gaps through on site fieldwork in Sandaun (West Sepik) Province, linguistically the most genetically diverse and least known province in all of Papua New Guinea. The grammatical descriptions resulting will enrich our understanding of linguistic variation, not only in New Guinea, but in the world as a whole.Read moreRead less
The effects of sentence structure on consonant and vowel articulations. Whilst machine-generated speech is generally of good quality at the level of the single word, it is noticeably less natural-sounding at the level of the sentence. This project examines an important aspect of the naturalness of human speech, namely, the effect that sentence structure has on individual consonants and vowels. A break-down of this naturalness is seen in some speakers who have suffered traumatic brain injury: suc ....The effects of sentence structure on consonant and vowel articulations. Whilst machine-generated speech is generally of good quality at the level of the single word, it is noticeably less natural-sounding at the level of the sentence. This project examines an important aspect of the naturalness of human speech, namely, the effect that sentence structure has on individual consonants and vowels. A break-down of this naturalness is seen in some speakers who have suffered traumatic brain injury: such speakers perform well when asked to utter a short word, but struggle when asked to produce a longer string of sounds. A better understanding of the interaction between speech sounds and sentence structure will lead to improvements in the treatment of speech disorders, and in the quality of human-machine communication.Read moreRead less