In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Verb classification in Australian languages by William B. McGregor
  • Sharbani Banerji
Verb classification in Australian languages. By William B. McGregor. (Empirical approaches to language typology 25.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002. Pp. 531. ISBN 3110171414. $120 (Hb).

In the early 1980s, when William B. McGregor began working on Gooniyandi, he found that a set of morphemes that apparently derived historically from verbs served as verbal classifiers in basically the same way that nominal classifiers in standard systems of nominal classification did.

The primary concern of this book is with systems of verb superclassification in Australian aboriginal languages, which are spread over a large region of northern and northwestern Australia. Just as super-classifying systems exist for nominals, based on animacy, gender, shape, use, and so on, a comparable small set of recurrent semantic features exists in overt verb superclassifying systems, viz., vectorial configuration, Aktionsart, and valency. The verb category systems in Australia are closely associated with the ‘compound verb constructions’ (CVC). Verb class systems or conjugation classes have derived historically from CVCs. The model proposed by M for linguistic classification is based on the classification employed in libraries. The book also hypothesizes about the historical origins and subsequent development of verb superclassifying systems and attempts to situate them within the wider context of grammatical phenomena.

Ch. 1 (1–40) introduces the concept and the typology of verb classification. A conceptual model for nominal and verbal classification systems is explored that draws on an analogy with library cataloguing systems. Ch. 2, ‘The Gooniyandi verb classifier system’ (41–100), goes into a detailed description of a verb classifier system that has grammaticized fairly recently from a CVC category system. The chapter ends with remarks on verb classification in Bunuba. Ch. 3, ‘CVC-based verb category systems’ (101–47), describes some fundamental properties of a CVC verb category system in a selection of languages of northern and northwestern Australia. Ch. 4, ‘Comparison of verb category systems’ (149–205), attempts a general comparison of the verb category systems discussed in Chs. 2 and 3, identifying the commonalities and divergences between the classifier system and the CVC system.

Ch. 5, ‘Verb class systems: Conjugations’ (207–43), describes the verb conjugation class systems of a selection of Australian languages. Ch. 6, ‘The grammar of verb superclassifying constructions’ (245–81), first gives an overview of the approaches to verb classification. It then adumbrates an alternative approach that focuses on grammatical relations. In Ch. 7, ‘Related grammatical phenomena’ (283–321), the system of verb classification discussed in Chs. 2–5 is situated in relation to other types of verb classification, auxiliary constructions, serial verb constructions, associated motion constructions, noun incorporation, and the like. Ch. 8, ‘Evolution of verb classification in Australia’ (323–62), investigates the origin and historical development of verb classifying systems in the languages of Australia. Ch. 9, ‘Verb classification in discourse: A preliminary investigation’ (363–89), undertakes a preliminary investigation into uses of verb classification systems in discourse and narrative, especially in Gooniyandi. Ch. 10, ‘Conclusions’ (391–412), gives suggestions for future directions of investigation. Appendices 1 and 2 give the necessary information on the Australian languages mentioned in this book.

Only belatedly has verb classification been recognized as a grammatical phenomenon, despite the fact that it is found in major languages of the world. A full account of verb classification should include both overt and covert systems.

...

pdf

Share