Claire Bowern
Yale University, Linguistics, Faculty Member
- Australian Indigenous languages, Historical Linguistics, Endangered Languages, Morphology, Prehistory, Language Documentation, and 29 moreLanguages and Linguistics, Historical Syntax, Typology, Language Variation and Change, Sociolinguistics, Syntactic Change, Linguistics, Evolutionary Linguistics, Language death and revival, Ethics, Ethnography, Ethnomusicology, Phylogenetics, Australian Aboriginal Languages, Australian Indigenous Studies, Language Typology, Phonology, Australian Languages, Linguistic Typology, Phonetics, Speech Prosody, Etymology, Indo-European Linguistics, Ancient Indo-European Languages, Hunter-Gatherers (Anthropology), Dialectology, Fieldwork in linguistics, Australian Indigenous Archaeology, and Cundeelee Wangkaedit
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There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. This work makes available valuable data compiled by Po Minis and the New Britain missionary P. Josef Meier for the Titan language. Meier published seventy-five... more
There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. This work makes available valuable data compiled by Po Minis and the New Britain missionary P. Josef Meier for the Titan language. Meier published seventy-five texts in Titan (the corpus is about 25,000 words) in the journal Anthropos between 1906 and 1909 and an addendum in 1912. Stories contain brief information about the speakers and are glossed word-for-word in German and occasionally Latin.
Sivisa Titan is divided into three sections. The first is a sketch grammar based entirely on the texts collected by Meier and published by him in Anthropos. Part Two is a wordlist compiled from the texts with an English-Titan reversal. Part Three contains the texts published by Meier. The present work provides English glosses based on Meier’s German ones and free translations, which are not included by Meier. Sivisa Titan will be an invaluable addition to our knowledge about the Admiralty Islands subgroup of Oceania. It also illustrates the importance of ethnographic texts collected in the local language and possibilities for analysis based on materials originally gathered for another purpose.
Sivisa Titan is divided into three sections. The first is a sketch grammar based entirely on the texts collected by Meier and published by him in Anthropos. Part Two is a wordlist compiled from the texts with an English-Titan reversal. Part Three contains the texts published by Meier. The present work provides English glosses based on Meier’s German ones and free translations, which are not included by Meier. Sivisa Titan will be an invaluable addition to our knowledge about the Admiralty Islands subgroup of Oceania. It also illustrates the importance of ethnographic texts collected in the local language and possibilities for analysis based on materials originally gathered for another purpose.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Linguists have long identified sound changes that occur in parallel. Now novel research shows how Bayesian modeling can capture complex concerted changes, revealing how evolution of sounds proceeds.
Research Interests:
Abstract In the Sivisa dialect of Titan (Admiralty Subgroup, Oceanic) there are a number of prepositions that agree in tense/mood with the main verb of the clause. The marker of tense on prepositions is homophonous with the third person... more
Abstract In the Sivisa dialect of Titan (Admiralty Subgroup, Oceanic) there are a number of prepositions that agree in tense/mood with the main verb of the clause. The marker of tense on prepositions is homophonous with the third person subject agreement clitic on matrix ...
The contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e.g. by Dixon 2002, Wurm 1972, and others) to have been sufficiently intense as to obscure the genetic relationship of the Western Torres... more
The contact history of the languages of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait has been claimed (e.g. by Dixon 2002, Wurm 1972, and others) to have been sufficiently intense as to obscure the genetic relationship of the Western Torres Strait language. Some have argued that it is an Australian (Pama-Nyungan) language, though with considerable infl uence from the Papuan language Meryam Mir (the Eastern Torres Strait language). Others have claimed that the Western Torres language is, in fact, a genetically Papuan language, though with substantial Australian substrate or adstrate influence. Much has been made of phonological structures which have been viewed as unusual for Australian languages. In this paper we examine the evidence for contact claims in the region. We review aspects of the phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of the Eastern and Western Torres Strait languages with an eye to identifying areal infl uence. Th is larger data pool shows that the case for intense contact has been vastly overstated. Beyond some phonological features and some loan words, there is no linguistic evidence for intense contact; moreover, the phonological features adduced to be evidence of contact are also found to be not specifically Papuan, but part of a wider set of features in Australian languages.
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Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights: On the Margins of Nations is a collection of papers originally presented at the Foundation for Endangered Language's (FEL) annual conference; the 2004 meeting was held in Barcelona.... more
Endangered Languages and Linguistic Rights: On the Margins of Nations is a collection of papers originally presented at the Foundation for Endangered Language's (FEL) annual conference; the 2004 meeting was held in Barcelona. The great majority of the papers are written in English, with a few in Spanish and one in Catalan.
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Abstract Australian linguistic prehistory has lagged behind equivalent endeavours on other continents in part because of the dearth of grammars and dictionaries until recent times, when there has been a great deal of high quality work... more
Abstract Australian linguistic prehistory has lagged behind equivalent endeavours on other continents in part because of the dearth of grammars and dictionaries until recent times, when there has been a great deal of high quality work done. Australianist linguists have tended not to use the standard comparative method. In some cases, this was because it was prematurely judged inapplicable in Australia, due to supposed very high levels of diffusion, which did not allow cognates to be distinguished from loans. This view is losing ground as ...
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BOOK NOTICES 179 this volume is to provide evidence from a number ofdifferentlanguagesandlanguagefamiliesto... the apparent tendency that has existed in the past toseetheexplanationoflanguagechangeasac... between... more
BOOK NOTICES 179 this volume is to provide evidence from a number ofdifferentlanguagesandlanguagefamiliesto... the apparent tendency that has existed in the past toseetheexplanationoflanguagechangeasac... between ''language-internal''(ie intra-systemic) and ''language-external''factors (ie contact)'(1). This collectioncomprises fourteenarticles, grouped under four major themes, with each article conveniently preceded by an abstract. Thefirstthemeis 'Levelling', aconceptwhichhas been extended from its 'internal'sense of complete or partial ...
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Approximately half of the papers collected here were presented as part of a workshop on Grammatical Relations and Grammatical Change at ICHL XIV (the Fourteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics) in Vancouver in 1999.... more
Approximately half of the papers collected here were presented as part of a workshop on Grammatical Relations and Grammatical Change at ICHL XIV (the Fourteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics) in Vancouver in 1999. Additional papers were invited following the workshop. The contributors to the volume are: WERNER ABRAHAM ('How far does semantic bleaching go?'), JOHN OLE ASKEDAL ('Oblique subjects, structural and lexical case marking'), JAN TERJE FAARLUND ('The notion of oblique subject and its ...
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Western Arrernte, an Australian language, is spoken in Central Australia, in Alice Springs and in the country to the west of Alice Springs. This dictionary was compiled by Gavan Breen from historical sources and through the knowledge of... more
Western Arrernte, an Australian language, is spoken in Central Australia, in Alice Springs and in the country to the west of Alice Springs. This dictionary was compiled by Gavan Breen from historical sources and through the knowledge of the Western Arrernte community. It is a preliminary dictionary and will form the basis of a much more extensive work in the future.
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Historical linguistics and language classification questions have recently been prominent in the field (as well as in the wider media) because of work demonstrating connections between Athabaskan and Yenisei languages (Vajda 2000, 2001)... more
Historical linguistics and language classification questions have recently been prominent in the field (as well as in the wider media) because of work demonstrating connections between Athabaskan and Yenisei languages (Vajda 2000, 2001) and the use of computational biological methods to study change, subgrouping, and population spread (Gray et al. 2007). Campbell and Poser have written a complex book that covers many aspects of language classification. They make contributions to the history of the field, to ...
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The origin of the typological split between the Australian PamaNyungan and nonPamaNyungan languages is here described by reference to palaeogeography. In the model advanced here these currently contiguous groups are understood to have... more
The origin of the typological split between the Australian PamaNyungan and nonPamaNyungan languages is here described by reference to palaeogeography. In the model advanced here these currently contiguous groups are understood to have originated in widely separate regions of Sahul at a time depth about twice that of previous estimates. Australian linguistic diversity is explained in terms of climatic events at the end of the last ice agethose that brought about the evacuation of the central arid zone during it and the ...
Research Interests: Archaeology, Law, Anthropology, Linguistics, Language, and 6 moreNature, Speech, Model, Age, Origin, and Current anthropology
There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. This work makes available valuable data compiled by Po Minis and the New Britain missionary P. Josef Meier for the Titan language. Meier published seventy-five... more
There are few published grammars of the languages of the Admiralty Islands. This work makes available valuable data compiled by Po Minis and the New Britain missionary P. Josef Meier for the Titan language. Meier published seventy-five texts in Titan (the corpus is about 25,000 words) in the journal Anthropos between 1906 and 1909 and an addendum in 1912. Stories contain brief information about the speakers and are glossed word-for-word in German and occasionally Latin.
Research Interests:
Abstract In the Sivisa dialect of Titan (Admiralty Subgroup, Oceanic) there are a number of prepositions that agree in tense/mood with the main verb of the clause. The marker of tense on prepositions is homophonous with the third person... more
Abstract In the Sivisa dialect of Titan (Admiralty Subgroup, Oceanic) there are a number of prepositions that agree in tense/mood with the main verb of the clause. The marker of tense on prepositions is homophonous with the third person subject agreement clitic on matrix ...
... Many thanks to Luise Hercus and Gavan Breen for access to unpublished data for Karnic languages, and to Russell Gray for discussion of NNets. Networks drawn with Splitstree (ÛÛÛº×ÔÐ Ø×ØÖ ºÓÖ). Page 2. ... Now, this is all too complex... more
... Many thanks to Luise Hercus and Gavan Breen for access to unpublished data for Karnic languages, and to Russell Gray for discussion of NNets. Networks drawn with Splitstree (ÛÛÛº×ÔÐ Ø×ØÖ ºÓÖ). Page 2. ... Now, this is all too complex for a single talk. Karnic case study ...
1 Introduction In the languages of the far North-West of Western Australia we find a radical mismatch between underlying morpheme structure and surface syllable structure. One such language is Bardi, a non-Pama-Nyungan Nyulnyulan language... more
1 Introduction In the languages of the far North-West of Western Australia we find a radical mismatch between underlying morpheme structure and surface syllable structure. One such language is Bardi, a non-Pama-Nyungan Nyulnyulan language spoken by approximately 30 ...
I wish to argue here that despite recent claims to the contrary (for example Dixon 2001), the Karnic languages of the Lake Eyre Basin do form a discrete subgroup. I hope also to put aside the idea, prevalent in some quarters, that the use... more
I wish to argue here that despite recent claims to the contrary (for example Dixon 2001), the Karnic languages of the Lake Eyre Basin do form a discrete subgroup. I hope also to put aside the idea, prevalent in some quarters, that the use of the terms 'genetic relationship' or ...
Introduction The purpose of this paper is to discuss revitalization prospects for the Yan-nhau language of Eastern Arnhem Land (Northern Australia). We review previous work on the language and outline some issues to consider for language... more
Introduction The purpose of this paper is to discuss revitalization prospects for the Yan-nhau language of Eastern Arnhem Land (Northern Australia). We review previous work on the language and outline some issues to consider for language revitalization. We argue that language ...
Two books have recently been published by Pacific Linguistics which deal with linguistic description and history in northern Australia. Nicholas Evans' twovolume Bininj Gun-wok is a reference grammar of the dialect cluster comprising... more
Two books have recently been published by Pacific Linguistics which deal with linguistic description and history in northern Australia. Nicholas Evans' twovolume Bininj Gun-wok is a reference grammar of the dialect cluster comprising Mayali, Kunwinjku, and Kune (and sub-varieties therein). Mayali is a lingua franca in the Western Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territory, with extensive local lects and comparatively numerous (by Australian standards) first and second language speakers. Bininj Gun-wok is a member of the ...
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Abstract. The Nimanburru language is known from very few sources, but we are lucky to have sound recordings made by Fr Anthony Peile in 1966 or 1967. In this talk I describe the recordings and the extent to which the available data... more
Abstract. The Nimanburru language is known from very few sources, but we are lucky to have sound recordings made by Fr Anthony Peile in 1966 or 1967. In this talk I describe the recordings and the extent to which the available data confirm or cause revision to existing ...
... Three problems with the Karnic data ... Thanks to ► Luise Hercus and Gavan Breen for access to unpublished data for Karnic languages. ► This work was funded in part by NSF CAREER BCS-0643517 Pama-Nyungan Reconstruction and the... more
... Three problems with the Karnic data ... Thanks to ► Luise Hercus and Gavan Breen for access to unpublished data for Karnic languages. ► This work was funded in part by NSF CAREER BCS-0643517 Pama-Nyungan Reconstruction and the Prehistory of Australia. ...
The Bardi language of Northwestern Australia exhibits complex interactions between morphology, syntax, and discourse structure. In this paper I examine the interplay between constituent order, the marking of argument functions through... more
The Bardi language of Northwestern Australia exhibits complex interactions between morphology, syntax, and discourse structure. In this paper I examine the interplay between constituent order, the marking of argument functions through verbal agreement, and the role of bound nominal omission. The findings presented here have implications for the Pronominal Argument Hypothesis and analysis of bound argument markers as “pronominal”.
The Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork is a manual for linguists (students and others) who travel to the “field” to obtain data about a language other than their own. The book's 13 chapters cover a very broad range of... more
The Handbook of Descriptive Linguistic Fieldwork is a manual for linguists (students and others) who travel to the “field” to obtain data about a language other than their own. The book's 13 chapters cover a very broad range of topics, from finding a field site and consultants to techniques for eliciting different types of data. Highlights include a chapter specifically dedicated to preparation for the field (both academically and mentally) and, as is unusually the case for books of this type, information about the history of fieldwork. ...
Bardi is the northernmost language of the Nyulnyulan family, a non-Pama-Nyungan family of the Western Kimberley region of northwestern Australia. Currently about five people speak the language fluently, but approximately 1,000 people... more
Bardi is the northernmost language of the Nyulnyulan family, a non-Pama-Nyungan family of the Western Kimberley region of northwestern Australia. Currently about five people speak the language fluently, but approximately 1,000 people identify as Bardi. The region was settled by Europeans in the 1880s and two missions were founded in Bardi country in the 1890s. Use of the language began declining in the 1930s. Many Bardi people were moved several times between 1940 and 1970, both to other missions dominated by speakers of ...
Few communities are wholly linguistically homogeneous and completely isolated from their neighbors. There is great variety in the extent of language and dialect contact in different communities, and therefore consideration of language... more
Few communities are wholly linguistically homogeneous and completely isolated from their neighbors. There is great variety in the extent of language and dialect contact in different communities, and therefore consideration of language contact is important in fieldwork and language documentation. However, fieldwork focused on individual speech varieties (or languages) has tended to see multilingualism as a problem rather than an opportunity, as a source of contamination of the data under consideration rather than something to study in ...
From the foods we eat and the houses we construct, to our religious practices and political organization, to who we can marry and the types of games we teach our children, the diversity of cultural practices in the world is astounding.... more
From the foods we eat and the houses we construct, to our religious practices and political organization, to who we can marry and the types of games we teach our children, the diversity of cultural practices in the world is astounding. Yet, our ability to visualize and understand this diversity is limited by the ways it has been documented and shared: on a culture-by-culture basis, in locally-told stories or difficult-to-access repositories. In this paper we introduce D-PLACE, the Database of Places, Language, Culture, and Environment. This expandable and open-access database (accessible at https://d-place.org) brings together a dispersed corpus of information on the geography, language, culture, and environment of over 1400 human societies. We aim to enable researchers to investigate the extent to which patterns in cultural diversity are shaped by different forces, including shared history, demo-graphics, migration/diffusion, cultural innovations, and environmental and ecological conditions. We detail how D-PLACE helps to overcome four common barriers to understanding these forces: i) location of relevant cultural data, (ii) linking data from distinct sources using diverse ethnonyms, (iii) variable time and place foci for data, and (iv) spatial and historical dependencies among cultural groups that present challenges for analysis. D-PLACE facilitates the visualisation of relationships among cultural groups and between people and their environments, with results downloadable as tables, on a map, or on a linguistic tree. We also describe how D-PLACE can be used for exploratory, predictive, and evolutionary analyses of cultural diversity by a range of users, from members of the worldwide public PLOS ONE |
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Here I present the background to, and a description of, a newly developed database of historical and contemporary lexical data for Australian languages (CALD), concentrating on the Pama-Nyungan family (the largest family in the country).... more
Here I present the background to, and a description of, a newly developed database of historical and contemporary lexical data for Australian languages (CALD), concentrating on the Pama-Nyungan family (the largest family in the country). While the database was initially developed in order to facilitate research on cognate words and reconstructions, it has had many uses beyond its original purpose, in synchronic theoretical linguistics, language documentation, and language reclamation. Creating a multi-audience database of this type has been challenging, however. Some of the challenges stemmed from success: as the size of the database grew, the original data structure became overly unwieldy. Other challenges grew from the difficulties in anticipating future needs, in keeping track of materials, and in coping with diverse input formats for so many highly endangered languages.
In this paper I document the structure of the database, provide an overview of its uses (both diachronic and synchronic), and discuss some of the issues that have arisen during the project and choices that needed to be made as the database was created, compiled, curated, and shared. I address here the major problems that arise with linguistic data, particularly databases created for diverse audiences, from diverse data, with little infrastructure support.
In this paper I document the structure of the database, provide an overview of its uses (both diachronic and synchronic), and discuss some of the issues that have arisen during the project and choices that needed to be made as the database was created, compiled, curated, and shared. I address here the major problems that arise with linguistic data, particularly databases created for diverse audiences, from diverse data, with little infrastructure support.
